


Lightsaber Cocksucking Blues

by Ossicle



Category: One Piece
Genre: Anal Sex, Background Kidlaw, Drama, Dubious Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, Hurt/Comfort, Law is dubcon sex sensei extraordinaire, M/M, Oral Sex, Pain, Painful Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-12
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2018-12-14 12:24:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 24,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11783118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ossicle/pseuds/Ossicle
Summary: On the rebound from their respective exes, Law and Sanji spend some quality time manhandling each other.[Formerly title 'Hurts' because of all the painkink and drama, retitled on a whim. Now with more ZoSan!]





	1. Hard

  
Sanji startled from his doze, eyes flying open at the feeling of a hand over his mouth.

"What? Shit." He tried to fumble upright.

"Shhh sh sh." A dark-haired man grinned at him and removed his hand from Sanji’s mouth to wrangle the clasp of his pants. "Sleeping on watch, what'll I tell your crewmates."

"You won't tell them shit cuz you’ll be dead." Sanji rubbed his eyes, embarrassed, and attempted to catch up with events. The slight lightening of the sky out the crow’s nest window told him that his watch was nearly half over. There were rough hands tugging at his clothes, and they weren’t Zoro’s. They were… Law’s. Right. He still wasn't used to that little detail.

He shoved at the tattooed hands irritably. "Not now, I'm on watch."

Law tsked. "This is what watch is for. When else can I get my hands on you?”

"When we're both in hell."

"Oh come now. I want to fuck you.”

“Ugh, you sound like Zoro.”

"I can be Zoro-ya if you want," Law's grin widened and he bore down overtop of him suddenly, pinning his arms and pressing his weight over Sanji’s hips.

Sanji felt a jolt of arousal surge through him but scowled, just on principle. “You're not Zoro. That's the point of all this.”

“True enough. I can appreciate some of his methods though. The view from here is fantastic.”

Sanji gave a short bark of laughter and thumped his head back on the floor. He looked over the grinning figure hovering above him: the broad shoulders were sharp instead of meaty, the frame narrow instead of thick, with curling tattoos instead of puckered scars. The unfamiliarity made him nervous.

And hard, apparently.

Law lowered himself down to nose around the blonde's neck and Sanji allowed himself to relax into the heat and insistence of him.

"No biting this time," he warned.

"Got it. No teeth. Any other requests, Blackleg-ya?"

Sanji sighed.

"Hard."

Law obliged.

 

* * *

 

Sanji almost regretted that last request. He would have been rough anyway, and he seemed to have taken it as permission to dispense with some of the niceties that Sanji preferred. Like enough goddamn lube.

Law was pounding into him, pressing down relentlessly on his lower back to stop him curling up. Each thrust jerking his body and throwing him off balance as he tried to brace on his arms.

 _Fuck_. Too much.

His pride wouldn't let him complain though. And it did get him going, made him angry. Enough to push back and growl warnings, which only seemed to encourage Law.

The angular man paused long enough to flip him over on his back and Sanji tried to collect himself. When Law hooked his legs over his shoulders, he gave him a warning jab with his heel and wrapped them instead around the slender waist. More control that way -- Sanji could probably crush a man with his thighs (not that he'd ever tried, nope).

Law just gave him that unsettling smirk again, and pushed in until he was flat and heavy against Sanji’s spread body. He tangled long fingers in the soft gold hair, cupping the back of his head.

And pulled, so Sanji's head was wrenched back and his throat exposed.

"Ahh! Hah… Law. Law, stop that shit."

The hand promptly let go. "Sorry."

"Nnh. It's okay. Just. Fuck me. Ah... "

He did, snapping his hips against him so that Sanji could feel the harsh drag of his dick over his insides, and sharp hip bones digging into his inner thighs. Why was everything about this guy sharp?

And fuck, it was still too raw. He should ask for more lube... Was that whiny? He'd already nixed two things, and didn't want to seem demanding to the older man. Honestly, Law was only the second guy he'd ever slept with, and he didn't want to look like he couldn't handle himself.

But it was hurting now, stinging. And Law showed no signs of stopping.

Sanji clenched his teeth, determined to tough it out, as he often had before. But a change of angle and a thrust jamming straight into his sensitized prostate shook him. It was _good,_ he was so hard, but... _shit_ , way too much.

"Fuck, Law... It hurts. Ahh, it's..."

The other's pace did falter, but then it picked up again harder, Law looping his hands under Sanji’s thighs and hitching him up to get deeper.

" _Ah!_ Fuck..."

Law leaned over him so their faces were almost touching.

"Say that again."

"Say what."

"Tell me that it hurts."

Sanji tried to come up with a retort but it was like all thought was being shaken out of him. Panic was starting to curl in his stomach.

"It... It _hurts,_ " he gasped out, "You're fucking hurting me."

Law crowded against him, pulling him onto his cock, jamming into that spot again so Sanji gasped and clenched.

"Fuck! Bastard, I _said_..." Sanji pulled a leg out of Law's grip and jacked it back.

Half a second later Law was crashing against the far wall. He was just fucking lucky it wasn't a full strength kick or he'd be going through the wall and landing in the goddamn sea with a dick full of splinters.

Sanji righted himself and stretched his legs painfully. "I said IT HURTS. For god’s sake."

"You could have just _said_ to stop," Law gathered himself off the floor, dusting off with only the slightest frown. What a fucking dickbag.

"That's what ‘ow it fucking hurts’ fucking means!"

"Not necessarily."

"Yes necessarily!"

"There's no directive in that. Am I supposed to read your mind? Fuck."

Sanji shook his head in disbelief. “What kind of ass-backwards island are you even from where pain doesn't mean stop?"

"It means ‘go’ for some."

Sanji faltered and stared. "Okay. Oookay. I am not your freaky, metal-chomping... Guy. Thing. You can’t do that with me. That straightforward enough?"

"You've made yourself _perfectly_ clear, yes."

Sanji’s temper flared. "You know what? Get the fuck out."

Law didn't look angry but his words were clipped and too even. "Are you _seriously_ going to let things sour because you didn't have the _maturity_ to use your damn words?"

"You made a shitty assumption, this is on you! That's the kind of thing you clear with a guy first!"

" _You_ told me before that you _like_ being held down. That your swordsman usually does it until it hurts and you _bleed_." Law was getting up in his face now, all threatening, and Sanji had another foot ready for his ass.

"That wasn’t a fucking how-to, that was a complaint! And Zoro may be a shitty ape but at least he doesn't TRY to hurt me."

Law scoffed. "And yet he does anyway? Then he's just sloppy." He neatly evaded the kick and follow-up leg swipe directed at him. His face did betray anger now.

“Out.”

“Gladly.” He had his clothes in hand in a moment. Sanji turned his back and pretended to look out the crow’s nest window. He saw Law’s reflection pull his hoodie over his tattooed back and disappear with a blue flash.

 

* * *

 

Sanji lasted two days before seeking Law out again.

It had been Sanji who'd approached Law in the first place, a couple weeks back now. He'd been looking to crack that stern veneer with a mostly-joking offer, expecting to get a blush at least. He hadn't gotten a blush but he HAD gotten his fuckin mind sucked out his dick.

Which was amazing because ever since Zoro had come back from his training period with Mihawk, he'd refused to ‘debase himself’ with such trifles as putting his goddamn mouth on Sanji's goddamn dick. Or ever, ever letting Sanji top. That had led to their current split (not that those ever lasted). Zoro had never had issues with it before, but now… ugh. Some manliness bullshit. Apparently chivalry meant never taking it in the ass.

Chivalry was a fucking bore.

And Law was anything but a bore. He may have been kind of a freak, and prone to crossing lines without thinking, but he was generous and attentive and more than willing to try different things.

And he was hot. Not Sanji’s usual thing, if he had a usual thing (...just Zoro, really). But he was tall and _cut_ and all like, intense, in his quiet way. _Tattoos._ And it was great to have an older partner with more sexual experience (and fewer stupid hangups) than Zoro. Even better: Law was completely willing to switch whenever Sanji felt like topping. It was worth some occasional miscommunications.

“Umeboshiiii.” Sanji popped up with his tray of snacks, from around the mast where the bleak figure was seated. Law gave him a look. “Just kidding. No bread in this one.”

Grey eyes gazed at him a moment longer. Then he shrugged and took the tray. “Thanks.”

Sanji slid down the mast to sit next to him, lighting a match on the way. He lit up and blew smoke into the still night air, until Law had finished his peace offering and seemed more receptive. It took all of Sanji’s considerable observation haki to be able to tell when Law’s moods changed, but he was pretty sure that putting the sword aside was a good sign.

Law breathed out finally. “So. You have last watch tonight, then?”

Sanji shrugged a little too dramatically. “Hey, maybe I just wanted to come and enjoy some pleasant conversation with you, honored guest.”

“And maybe you wanted your dick sucked.”

“And maybe I wanted my dick sucked,” Sanji agreed, grinning and lighting another cig.

Law snorted, which was kinda like a laugh.

Sanji chewed his cig for a moment. “But like, yeah. I also wanted to say, just… uh.”

Law interrupted him. “Blackleg-ya. It… wasn’t my intention to push you past the limits of your comfort. I would never -- or, won’t again -- cause you pain. Without your consent.”

 _Without my consent,_ Sanji repeated to himself drily. As though the guy thought he could change his mind. “I appreciate that. I just don’t like pain. Okay?”

“Understood.”

“Fabulous.”

They both sat in silence for a while, nodding with sage satisfaction, as though they’d just ironed out the most solemn of treaty terms.

Sanji puffed out his cheeks. “I mean. Okay, not _never_ never, but like?”

Law barked out something that might have been a laugh, and looked sideways at him with a grin.

Sanji immediately walked it back. “Do not take that to mean ‘go right the fuck ahead.’ I just mean that sometimes things get intense. But only toward the end of things, and only within reason, and not in a sharp, bitey, or hair-pull-y way.”

“I do understand the concept of moderation.”

“Do you?” Sanji mused.

“I do understand that others have a concern for this concept called moderation.”

“Yeah I’m sure you’ve studied it.” Sanji stood with an answering grin. He felt a little smug -- he’d just secured himself a date for an early morning blowjob, he’d (almost) gotten the unflappable man to laugh, and had even (kinda) gotten a joke out of him. Fuck yeah his people skills were ON POINT.

“Maybe we should both get some sleep in, huh.”

Law nodded graciously and Sanji disappeared off to the boys’ room.

 

* * *

 

Law more than delivered on the dick sucking front. Sanji gripped onto the crow's nest bench until he was sure there'd be fingerprints gouged in the wood. That amazing mouth slipped over his cock, all firm and hot, one decorated hand wrapped around the base and brushing over his balls, the other teasing over his thigh.

"Fuck. Your mouth is good. Ah."

Law glanced up at him and gave the head a swift lick around the ridge and just... _Unh, fuck._ Sanji fuckin melted.

The guy appeared to really enjoy sucking dick too, which was hot as all hell. His hands travelled over Sanji's sensitive inner thighs like he couldn't get enough. Occasionally he'd switch out of his steady rhythm to mouth over them too. Sanji twitched nervously whenever he felt Law's teeth graze his skin, just just slightly, but Law stuck to his promise not to bite anymore. He seemed to enjoy making the blonde twitch though.

"Fuckin exquisite vastus medialis too." He heard Law mutter. Were those… real words?

"What?"

"Nothing. How are your leg muscles so well developed and the rest of you so lean?"

Sanji preened a little. "Kicking ass."

"Of course."

"Mmhm. Could you, uh? That thing."

Law returned his mouth to the twitching cock in front of him. He flicked grey eyes up to meet blue ones and held their gaze as he sank down onto it. Until the tip brushed the back of his throat and then he was swallowing tight around it and taking it down and--

"FUCK. Yes, fuck." Sanji cracked his head back against the wall. "Ow."

Law slid all the way back off again with that incredible suction and smacked his lips. "I'm not taking responsibility for that 'ow'."

"I'll own that one. Don't stop."

"Do something for me?"

"Yes. Anything. Yes."

"Just put your hand in my hair."

"Kay. Like this?" Sanji threaded his fingers lightly through the dark hair so he was just cradling the back of his head.

“Yes. Like that.”

Law breathed in and then took Sanji in his mouth again all at once. His throat opened so fuckin perfectly -- not even a tremor. His lips reached the base of his dick before moving back out again and Sanji's toes started curling.

His hands too. He made himself relax when he realized he was starting to grip Law’s head.

“Ah, sorry.”

Law's eyes flicked up at him and he paused in his slow movement. Then he closed one of his own hands around Sanji's and pressed over the fingers.

“Uh,” okay, yeah, he could do that. He gripped with a bit more pressure and felt Law hum low in his throat. That sounded like a good noise. He gripped harder and earned a shiver.

“You're such a freak,” Sanji laughed, and just went for a fistful of hair.

Law smirked up at him around a mouthful of cock and went to fucking work. Sanji didn't have to guide him or anything, just let his hand move with his head, keeping up a harsh grip. Now and then easing off and carding through the messy hair when Law came up for a breath. In short order he felt that curl of pressure and heat building. He tapped Law's shoulder.

“I'm… fuck, ah, I'm gonna come…”

Law gave him a beckoning gesture and took him down to the hilt. Sanji came in what felt like an endless stream, buried deep in the tight throat.

“You're fuckin unbelievable,” he gasped out as Law eased off and gave him a final kiss on the crease of his thigh.

“You're fun to suck off. So responsive.” Law rested his elbows over Sanji's spread legs and gave him a considering look.

“How do you not choke? How did you learn to do that?” Sanji slouched against the wall, all flushed.

“Practice, heh. Just. Sucking a lot of dick.”

“Surgeon of Death; Devourer of Dick.” He always got kinda floaty and ridiculous after coming. He fucking giggled.

“Oh my god do not.”

“Chomper of Chub.”

“I’m gonna chomp your chub clean off in a second.”

“Wah nooo haha…” Sanji covered his messy, deflating dick with two hands and flopped over sideways.

Law hummed and lazily licked up some stray beads of cum threading from his slit, and Sanji felt himself hardening again already. He dragged his fingers through the dark hair.

“Wanna fuck me?” He offered, curling a leg around Law’s back. “You can bite, too, but only a little.”

“Mmm. I was actually thinking you could suck me off too.”

“Yeah totally. I can try out your special secret technique.”

Law let the corner of his mouth twitch up. “If you like. It takes some getting used to.”

“Naw, I can totally do it.”

“Okay. On your knees.”

Sanji felt a subtle rush at the casual order, and he slid down onto the floor as Law reclined on the bench. Law was already hard as fuck, just from sucking him off. Fuck, that was hot. His dick was longer than Sanji was used to, curling slightly up so it almost pointed back at Law’s stomach.

He settled between the long legs and nuzzled around the flushed member. Law sighed with pleasure.

Sanji started up slow, just mouthing up the sides and working the foreskin over the head with a loose hand. He could definitely swallow that, he thought. Probably.

He fit his lips around the tip and bobbed slowly, further and further down, his heartbeat picking up as Law's cock started to nudge the back of his throat. It bumped a little harder on the next take and he felt his gag reflex kick in. He pulled off and gasped.

Law reassured him, “You don't need to rush it. Just take it slow, let it sit against your soft palate for a minute until you get used to it.”

Piqued, Sanji wrinkled his brow and jammed his face back onto that cock. He held it while his throat contracted.

“Oh my god it's not a fucking race. Who are you even competing with?”

Sanji slid off with a pout. “You.”

“Heh. Do you know how long it took me to lose my gag reflex? Like, forever.”

Sanji put on a deep singsong voice. “~I’m Trafalgar Law, I trained ninety years for the chubchomp olympics. Lalala.~”

“Oookay, down you go.” Law grabbed his head and shoved him back onto his cock. “Anyone ever tell you that your sass is gonna get you murdered?”

“Mm-hmff.”

“Thought so. Okay, just…” He placed light fingers over the curve of Sanji's jaw and held him steady halfway sheathed. “Keep your throat open.”

He guided his head down, gently. Sanji held his throat open and kept from gagging until he felt the flare of the head push past his tonsils. He pulled away and gasped. His eyes were watering a little.

Law waited for him to recover. He slid his fingers through the golden hair while the clever mouth eased back over him.

This time Sanji kept from gagging as Law’s cock forced open his throat, sliding down until his nose was nestled in the dark hairs at the base.

“Good, fuck, that's so good. God.” His fingers brushed over Sanji's face, eyes watering, cheeks shading red. Just looking at him brought Law dangerously close to coming right then. Sanji's throat started tremoring, and he began pulling off again.

Law caught him, held him firm by the back of the neck. Blue eyes widened and looked up at him.

“Hold it, just hold it for a moment… fuck, your face is a mess…”

Sanji shivered and screwed his eyes shut. His fingers were clawing into the flesh of Law’s thighs, shaking. Moisture ran from his eyes.

Law finally let out a deep breath and released him. Sanji pulled off, coughing and choking. Thick saliva trailed from his lips.

Law ran his thumb over them. “Can I fuck you?”

Sanji looked at him through half-lidded eyes, breath shuddering in and out. He was hard again. “Yes.”

“Just lean on the bench, okay.” Law got up and retrieved the lube from his coat, discarded on the floor nearby. Then returned and wrapped himself around Sanji’s bent back, one arm braced around his waist to hold him in place. His legs bracketing Sanji’s instead of between them, so he was caging him in. He slicked up his fingers and wasted no time pushing one in.

“Ah!…”

“You'll tell me if it hurts, right? And I'll slow down.”

“...Yeah.”

Law didn't skimp on the lube this time, and soon had him stretched open over three fingers as Sanji shivered and gasped.

“Good?”

“Fuckin good,” Sanji breathed back.

“You're so tight, god. Always so put-together in your suit and shit. I just look at you and wanna fucking wreck you.”

Hearing that made apprehension creep into his stomach. But it didn't make him any less hard. Sanji felt him lining up his cock against his hole, nudging, about to split him open. He startled when Law did push in, hard. “Law!” he practically shouted.

“Shh, people are gonna start waking up soon.”

“Annhh… shit…”

“Does it hurt?”

It did, a little. But. It always did. “No. No, s’ good.”

He crossed his arms over the bench and laid his forehead on them. Gripped his own arms as Law started to thrust into him, deep and even, and pleasure hummed through him. His breath still felt ragged and his lips raw.

“Law. Harder.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, Law is a prick in this one right? But he's fun to write that way, the pushy bastard. Also, this really isn't my biggest ship -- Zosan and Kidlaw forever -- but the potential for drama and dubcon is strong with this one. I think I might continue.


	2. Sweet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well this chapter is all setup and hijinks. Next chapter will be back to porn and drama, promise. 
> 
> Also, general New World setting, post Punk Hazard, but I'm spacing the timeline way out and making stuff up. Obvs.

“Okay so I wanna fuck ya.”

“Okay then.” Law didn't look up from whatever dense tome he was reading. Sanji had found him in the library with the lights off, reading by the light filtering through the curtains.

“But! I want to do something no one’s done to you before.”

At that, Law snorted and looked up, keeping a finger on the spot he'd been reading. “That's gonna be difficult.”

“I am so up to it.”

“No, I mean, coming up with something new is going to be difficult.”

“ _You're_ being difficult. I can think of like a hundred things to do. You can't have done all of them, you massive showoff.” Sanji paced around, hands in suit pockets, casting disinterested glances at the books. Chewing an unlit cigarette since Nami would kill him if he smoked in here.

Law tracked his restless path with a hint of amusement. “All the ones I care to have done to me? Pretty much, yeah.”

“We’ll find something.” He paused in his wanderings and grinned. “Maybe we can dig into the 'kinda no but kinda yes’ category, if the ‘oh yes’ list is all ticked off. I want it to be something you'll fuckin remember.”

“You know who you sound like right now?” Law turned back to his book and perched his chin on his hand.

“Do not say ‘Eustass.’”

“Well he said the exact same thing to me once. You both have a competitive streak a mile wide.”

“I do not.” Sanji tried to look offended. But he went ahead and asked the next obvious question. “Sooo what did he end up doing to you?”

Law demurred. “I find that no one _really_ wants to know the details of their lovers’ past sexual encounters. And it's not stuff that would appeal to you anyway.”

Well that little challenge clinched it. Sanji squared his shoulders. “Gimme.”

Law kept reading.

“Was it… spanking?”

“Stop.”

“Choking.”

A glare.

“Choking… with a belt.”

Law scowled at him. “How the fuck did you…? You know what -- doesn't matter.”

Sanji raised two fists. “YES! Oh man, Nami owes me! Or, I owe her less…”

“You fuckin went gossiping about my shit to Nami?”

“I didn't say shit to Nami. But we didn't exactly need observation haki to see the massive ligature marks you were ‘hiding’ last time we saw you. You're not always as subtle as you think you are.”

“Great,” Law grumped.

Sanji sidled up to him smoothly on the chaise. “Okay, I guessed correctly, now you gotta tell me what stuff you've done so I can think of something else.”

“I don't remember agreeing to any such--”

“I’ll let you choke me.” Sanji put on his best version of the Big Blue Eyes.

Law paused. That look just made him wanna… “Choke you _out?_ ”

“Out? Like, unconscious?”

“Yes.”

“Uh.”

“...Eustass-ya let me do it.”

“Fuck him, I will let you do it TWICE.”

Law snapped the book closed. “Excellent. Proceed with your questions.”

Twenty minutes later Sanji was regretting this line of questioning a little.

“...in a bucket of seawater? Really? Holy shit. That's so specific.”

“It was pretty effective.” Law had bitched and moaned at the start but he was grinning now, clearly enjoying the chance to brag.

“What about drag? Haha…”

“You need to put your two years of training to use somehow, huh?” Law teased him, and Sanji frowned. “But yeah, done it.”

Sanji laid back on the chaise. “Double penetration.”

“Done it. Also, last time I checked, you only had one dick.”

Sanji pouted. What would be a new experience for the smug bastard… “ohmigod Law. Have you ever switched _dicks_ with someone.”

Law stared at him.

“You haven't. You haven't! Oh man.”

“Uh. That is a very… inventive use of my power.”

“Law do you realize that next time someone tells you to go fuck yourself, you'll be able to say ‘already did’? I imagine you get that a lot.”

“Blackleg-ya, do you realize I’d have to cut off both our dicks?”

At that moment the fucking chaos train blew through, interrupting all talk of dick excision. Tiny furry Chopper ran in, covered in white powder, pursued closely by Luffy and then Usopp.

“He's going to EAT him, Sanji, STOP him!” the long nosed sharpshooter wailed.

“Lemme jus lick him!”

Chopper threw himself at Sanji for protection, who was already escaping over the back of the chaise. Luffy threw himself after both and they landed in a pile, sending up a cloud of white powder.

Law casually lifted his feet out of the way.

Sanji struggled upright. “Usopp --OH MY GOD put your tongue away Luffy-- Usopp _why_ is the Captain trying to eat our doctor.”

“Cos he's so sweet! Shishishi!” Luffy laughed at his own joke and momentarily abandoned licking at Chopper to cling to Sanji’s neck. “Sanjiii you’ve been ignoring us lately! Just hanging around Torao. I think Zoro is getting sad.”

The disgruntled cook ignored the last part of that. “Chopper is always sweet and yet we don't usually eat him.”

“Today he's covered in nitre and powdered sugar,” Usopp explained. He took hold of Chopper and tugged but the little deer was clinging to Sanji and Luffy had wrapped them all up in his rubber arms.

“ _Why_ is he covered in nitre and sugar.”

“He fell in the vat while I was making smoke bombs.”

“ _Where_ did you get the sugar?”

“Not important not important the Captain is eating the doctor who is very flammable and anyway Zoro was the one who unlocked your storage room cuz he had a key and also he stole a bunch of sake so.”

“godDAMMIT.” Sanji roared from under the mess. The chaos train collectively decided that they should all be elsewhere and took off again in a puff of sugar and catastrophe.

Sanji dusted himself off furiously and strode out the door after them. Then turned around and strode back in.

“Have you ever had someone lick sugar off your naked body?” He threw at Law.

Law lowered the book with a look of great consternation. “No. No I have not.”

“Well fuckin prepare yourself.” He spun around and exited.

“I think I'd rather cut your dick off,” Law muttered testily and returned to his book as the sounds of conflict rang suddenly from the deck of the ship.

 

* * *

 

“Figures that you'd want to do a food-related thing,” Law reflected as Sanji was mixing up his fifth concoction in his well-equipped kitchen. Once the idea of sugar+Law had gotten into his head, the cook had gone full gourmet and spent the afternoon experimenting with flavors of icings and syrups that would go best with what he claimed was Law’s unique flavor.

Law protested that he did not have a flavor because he was not a food, watching Sanji add tiny pansies to one saucepan.

“Everyone has a flavor.”

“Well I don't think my flavor is _at all_ fucking floral.”

“Nah,” agreed Sanji. “Not floral, and definitely not sweet. I figure the sugar and stuff will be the perfect counterpoint to your pervasive bitterness.”

Law scoffed, sure he was being made fun of.

Sanji sucked at a spoon hanging out of his mouth. “You taste like… like alcohol, and pine needles, and ozone. A hint of something a little like chalk too. Mineral-y.”

“Chalk?” Law asked nervously.

“Maybe not chalk. I dunno -- like sourness and stone.”

There was no way any human tasted like pine needles or chalk -- Sanji’s observation haki clearly emerged in his sense of taste as well, and what he was actually picking up on was bits and pieces of Law’s history. The disinfectant he used in his medical practice; the trees of his Northern home; his fruit power, like the air after a lightning storm. And the chalkiness… a shadow of the toxin that had contaminated him as a child, made his skin soften and _rot_ and slough off like wet leaves.

Shit that Law did _not_ want to hear had somehow lingered in the very taste of him.

He regretted agreeing to this foolishness now. He slouched at the counter and scowled at the little flowers, willing them to wilt.

“Don't make that face,” Sanji twirled his little spoon and moved the saucepan to an ice bath. “It’ll be fun. A sweet Trafalgar Law, hahaha…”

“Wouldn’t you rather do something that tests my limits a little more? I have never, for example, been hung by my feet and facefucked. So let's do that.”

“That's so dark, what the hell.” Sanji stuck a pansy in Law’s hair and grinned. “Don't you wanna do something that feels good?”

He was such a fucking ray of sunshine. Ugh. Law thumped his head down onto the counter and thought about how hard he was gonna choke the sunny feel-good crap out of him later.

Sanji stuck another few pansies in his hair, smirking like the devil himself.

A door banging open startled the chef. Law kept his head where it was.

“NO sake,” he heard him growl acidly, at someone who could only be their booze-guzzling swordsman. Aw shit, this was gonna turn tense real quick. Law reviewed exit strategies in his head.

He heard Zoro give a terse “Chyeh,” and heavy boots ambled over to them.

“Feeling pretty, are ya,” the green-haired man leaned on the counter and poked the flower with a calloused finger.

Law had forgotten about the damn thing. He brushed it away with a sigh.

“What do you want,” Sanji was apparently not ready for peace talks.

“Was hoping to find you less bitchy. And more… alone.” He arched a brow at Law, who arched both brows at the door and attempted to slide on outta there. Law was fond of Sanji but he was not fond of getting in the middle of other people's drama. Particularly when he considered all this a temporary engagement.

But Sanji snagged Law’s collar as he slunk past and swung him right back into the chair. “He's fine where he is. He's good with a blade, and decent kitchen help is _so_ hard to find these days.”

Oh, god. Law stayed frozen in the chair. The swordsman looked pointedly at where Sanji’s hand was fisted in Law’s shirt. And then up at the cook. And back down.

“ _I_ think. He'd prefer a seat outside.” Zoro grabbed the other side of his collar and tugged him away from Sanji.

“I think I'd prefer him here and _you_ outside,” Sanji tugged him back. “Bastard kenshi.”

“Oi. Curlicue. Can we have one civil fucking conversation?”

“NOPE.”

“Well there is certainly a lot of unwarranted touching happening right now,” Law complained, strung between them.

He’d definitely spoken too soon. The chaos train swung by.

The door banged open again and Luffy bounded in, drawn by the sounds of conflict. “Are we doing Torao’s HAIR?” He landed in Law’s lap and plucked a flower out of the dark tangle.

“We most certainly are not.” Law brushed a hand through his hair and several more little purple blooms fell. How many fucking flowers were in there?

Usopp swung around the door frame with Chopper wrapped in a towel on his shoulders. The girls followed, cooing at the tightly bundled little doctor. They fucking lost it at the sight of Law with flowers in his hair.

Amidst the mounting noise, Zoro grabbed Sanji by the wrist and hauled him out to the deck. Law sighed and focused on extricating himself from Luffy’s grasp. Luffy thought this was a fuckin great game.

“We have to stay here for a while now, until Sanji and Zoro make up again,” he informed Law, wrapping his arms around him a couple more times.

“I…” Luffy always surprised him. He hadn’t thought Strawhat would have any notion of the situation. Law managed to pull one arm loop over his head and found another snaking around his shoulders. “I doubt they need any assistance, Strawhat-ya.”

“They need all the damn help they can get,” griped Nami, sitting up on the counter and sticking a painted finger in one of Sanji's floral syrups. “Honestly, they break up like once a month. And every time they swear that's the end of it. I kinda thought they'd grow out of the on-and-off after two years apart, you know?”

“Unless there are new, complicating factors,” Robin mused, picking another tiny blossom out of Law’s hair. “Ah, pansies. That's for thoughts."

Nami kicked her feet delightedly. "These are so sweet! Are they for cocktails?"

Robin sifted through the flowers littering the chopping block. "Perhaps. And what else is our Sanji cooking with, hm? Columbines... A sweet little flower. Deadly roots." She regarded Law with her piercing blue eyes, twirling a columbine in her fingers.

God she was scary.

“Does this crew usually get so into the personal matters of all its members?” Law murmured.

“Yeah. Hardcore.” Usopp warned. “Not much else to do on a damn boat.”

“Right.” Law was getting worried now. He tugged at the rubber arms.

“Torao, it's cuz we have to keep all the parts of the Sunny working together. You know? We keep each other alive.” The little screwball captain was all quiet and serious.

Well now Law felt like a total ass. But fuck, Blackleg-ya had approached _him_. And like hell was he gonna apologize for enjoying himself.

 


	3. Don't

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Switching gears a bit -- this is gonna be a difficult chapter. Warnings for trauma stuff, not sure how to tag it. Themes of violence and violent sexuality.
> 
> Alternate title: Sanji Profoundly Misreads Some Cues.

 

Law hid out and sulked among the mikan planters, watching the moon through the waving branches. Everyone had already gone to bed. Robin was on watch. There was no one to hide from but he still felt like he needed to hole up so he could think.

Thinking was so _difficult_ on this damn ship. You never knew when someone would pop up with more fucking flowers and friendship and unwelcome insight. The whole damn Strawhat crew were a suffocating lot. Too animated, too tactile, too tangled up in each other. Always threatening to get their feelers into him too. Law could see why stoic Zoro would appreciate a space apart from the rest, high atop the main mast.

And Sanji… Law had thought he’d be the least touchy-feely of all of them—all acerbic and swaggering, always a cigarette hanging from his lip, hands in pockets. But he had this way of seeing through bullshit. Picking up on things. And of the whole crew he was perhaps the most tuned into the day-to-day moods and needs of its members. Which increasingly seemed to include Law.

“Everyone hides out here, you know. Which makes it a shitty hiding spot.”

He tensed slightly as the smirking blond appeared above him. He noted the little stoppered bottle in Sanji's hand—this one was rose-colored. “Are you really still determined to do your sugar thing?”

“YUP.”

“Great. Well, help yourself.” Law stretched out and closed his eyes.

“Okay I'm sensing some weirdness, so let's get that out of the way.” Sanji crossed his legs and lit a cig.

“The weirdness was firmly in place before I ever got here,” Law muttered.

“You mean Marimo and I? Yeah that's been an ongoing thing, but I told you that already. And it's not going to get better so…” Sanji shrugged like that was the end of it.

“So your chat didn't get anywhere?”

“Yeah we spoke. We're… good. And still _not_ getting back together.” He looked pissed now. “Despite his _very_ minimal attempt to actually address the shit we split over in the first place…”

Law made a vague noise. He'd avoided prying into the whole backstory, but from idle talk it seemed like the two were in permanent orbit around each other. Distant and cool, then close and volatile, circling forever.

Sanji would likely go back to Zoro the moment he got his bruised ego sufficiently soothed. And his dick sufficiently sucked.

Which didn't bother Law AT ALL, of course.

And anyway. There were more immediate weirdnesses to consider.

Sanji stubbed out the cigarette and unstopped his little bottle with a flourish. He seemed amused by Law's eye roll. “It's so funny that this, of all things, makes you nervous.”

Law pulled his furred cap further down over his face. “Who’s nervous? I've willingly submitted to many varieties of bizarre torture; this is fine. It’s fine.”

“It's not a bizarre torture it's a rosehip coulis.”

“Well the bizarre torture offer stands.”

“Just lemme enjoy this, okay? This is what I like.” Sanji gave him a look and Law felt a little bad. Yeah—he was being ridiculous.

“Sorry, yeah. Let's do it.” He gave an apologetic almost-smile and sat up to kiss his neck.

The blond smiled and hummed. He pushed the hat from Law’s head and tugged the shirt off him, exposing the thick blackwork tattoos.

Law kissed up his neck to his ear, nipping at the lobe while working the buttons on the crisp collared shirt. He pulled it down off the lean shoulders and ran his tongue over the pale chest, teasing at sensitive nipples.

Sanji pushed him to the ground with a grin.

Law immediately went to turn face down.

“Hey no, get back here. Turn your face up. I wanna put the stuff on your tattoos,” Sanji protested.

“I have tattoos on my back too though, so…”

“Gimme yer damn face.”

Law laughed through his teeth and reluctantly turned back face-up. He crossed his arms over his eyes. In a moment he felt the syrup drip across his lips and down his neck, then around one side of the heart shape on his chest.

He flicked out his tongue and tasted it. Sweet—so sweet it was sickly. His stomach was all knots.

Then Sanji's clever, searching tongue was trailing over his neck and down the hollow of his collarbone and his breath stuttered. It would have felt amazing... if he wasn't so pointlessly fucking keyed up.

 _Relax_ , he berated himself. _He can't actually tell any of that stuff. Just a fluke._

“I was right on, _yes._  The rosehip is just the right amount of sharp and sweet…”

“Yeah?”

“Mhm.”

“So roses go well with me huh. Wouldn't have guessed.”

“I can tell this kind of stuff about people.” The hot tongue traced its way over the black expanses on his chest. Sanji sucked up the flesh and dragged the barest bit of teeth over it.

“ _Ah_ … _”_

He chuckled, pleased that he'd gotten a noise.

“You can do that harder,” Law ventured to lift an arm away from his face. He cupped Sanji's face and traced a thumb lightly over his lips.

Sharp teeth and pale lips closed over it. Sucked. Bit.

There. Law felt himself hardening against the lithe blond straddling him.

“Yeah? Harder?” Sanji chose another spot, where the black curve edged around a taut pectoral, and closed his teeth down, hard. Law felt a familiar rush of fluttering endorphins drown out his nerves for one too-brief moment, before Sanji released it and tongued soothingly over the small indent. The little rush of respite peaked, and faded into nothing.

Law tried to press him: “Harder. Less tongue.”

“Um. Nah I just… I wanna make this feel good for you.”

“It does. Like, _that’s—_ ”

“Okay whatever,” Sanji interrupted, waving a bashful hand. “But if I do it too much harder you'll taste like blood instead, heh.”

He retraced the black line with his tongue again, slowly, considering something. Strands of blond hair fell across his face and trailed over Law’s skin.

_Instead of what?_

Law swallowed, nerves returning in full force. “Can you really still taste, uh, chalk or whatever?”

“Hm. Yeah. But… It's not chalk. I don't know what it is.” He paused. “Your heart is going like a million miles an hour.”

“Amber Lead,” Law mouthed, barely audible.

Sanji frowned, “What?”

“Hm? Uh. I'll tell you another time.”

“Isn't that… a fucking disease? Wait, where are you from again?”

“Nowhere you've heard of. Just do your thing.”

Sanji hummed uncertainly, but continued his broad swipe down Law’s chest until he reached the end of his sweet trail. He stopped again, thinking. Then pulled away as it occurred to him, “Amber Lead is _contagious_.”

“It is _not_ contagious,” Law snarled with sudden heat. “I am _not_ contagious.”

He pushed away the calming hand Sanji put to his shoulder. Then sat up abruptly and shoved back from him, bristling.

“Shit, sorry.” Sanji looked taken aback.

“Don't 'sorry’ me, the fuck are you even sorry for.”

“Well fuck then, _not_ sorry.”

Law immediately felt like an idiot. He averted his eyes and tried to collect himself.

“I'm from North Blue too.” Sanji moved subtly closer.

Grey eyes looked at him, surprised. Wary. “Not East Blue, like your crewmates?”

“No… uh, kinda. You're from Flevance, aren't you. Everyone from North Blue knows it was wiped out by Amber Lead.”

Law gave a slightly hysterical laugh and retreated further. He mumbled, “Wasn't Amber Lead that did it—it was the Marines. Under the cover of an invented contagion panic.”

“...Holy shit.” Sanji waited for more but Law had clammed up again. He pushed, “That have something to do with your whole proximity phobia?”

He was zeroing in on him, like a spotlight.

Law shook his head like there was something stuck in it. His ears were ringing. His throat closing. “Can you just leave it alone?”

“Law, it's okay.” He closed the distance between them again, reassuring hand hovering. "See?"

“Sanji, fuck, just, just don’t.”

“Don’t worry...”

The too-gentle hand stretched out toward his face…

Law startled, adrenaline surging, and scrabbled at the probing hand. Caught it by the wrist. Twisted. “ _Don't_ …”

“Hey, whoa, fuck—”

“ _Don't_ give me that pitying shit.”

“Not pitying; just fucking helping. Ow.”

“Same thing.” Twisted it.

“ _Ah_ , fuck, not my hand. _Law_.” He tried to pull away and a sharp pain shot up to his elbow. “ _AH! Shit!_ ”

Law held it like that, his face contorting into a sneer. “With you it's the same. It's that thing you do, that prying, pacifying horseshit, like you're calming a caged animal or ‘managing’ one of your childish crew mates.”

“Ngh. It's just what I do. Give people what they need.”

“Well fucking don't. Maybe I really am contagious, huh? Maybe just touching me will fuck you up—make your fingers wither _. Crumble.”_

“Law, _stop_.”

Law didn't stop.

“...Make your skin split and slide off. You and everyone you touch. Your entire fucking crew, rotting alive.”

Sanji shuddered. The pain in his wrist was mounting, his adrenaline and anger with it. He braced himself on his other arm. Ready.

“You fucking psycho… I guess you'd rather be _managed_ like a rabid animal than a caged one?”

“Hah. I might. Care to try it, Blackleg-ya?”

Sanji accepted the invitation.

He swung his legs around lightning-fast and planted a foot squarely in Law’s ribs, sending him sprawling back against the railing. He pounced after him and landed with a knee jammed into his throat.

Law’s laugh was wild, grating. “Here’s a free tip. Compromising my right arm will prevent me from using my fruit power.” He grabbed Sanji’s leg and threw him with a strength strangely disproportionate to his slender frame.

Sanji crashed to the deck but rolled and recovered instantly. He lunged. Law met him with a snarl.

Law was strong, and quick, but he wasn't a hand-to-hand fighter. His opponent _was_. Few could match Sanji's agility on the ground, and he'd had plenty of experience grappling with stubborn fucking supernovae.

And despite his warning, Law wasn't using his devil's fruit power.

It was over with a kick that rattled Law’s jaw on its hinge and made his vision go to static for a split second. Enough time for Sanji to wrench his right arm up between his shoulder blades and _press,_ hard, until ligaments creaked and Law hissed through his teeth in pain.

“That feel better, huh? More tolerable? Shit…” Sanji wiped a trail of blood from his lip and leaned on the twisted arm. His wrist burned as he maintained the submission hold. Sprained? Broken? It hurt— _fuck—it_  made him angry. Confused.

Law grit out through his teeth, “Much. You gonna fuck me or what?”

“What, now you wanna fuck? Like this...”

“Just like this. _Do it_.”

“With your face in the dirt and your shoulder tearing? Huh?” He growled and leaned on the arm. Considering. It would be… so satisfying. It would be easy. He was lying on top of Law, pinning his lower body with the cant of his hips, knees digging into the backs of his thighs. He could feel the crackle of energy in the Warlord's smallest movements. Electricity, adrenaline and desperation. The taste of chalk was thick in every breath.

“You’ll love it, I promise. _I'll_ love it.”

Sanji could sense bitter mockery in Law's voice and suddenly felt profoundly unbalanced.

“Bullshit. You just want me to lower my guard.”

“Not bullshitting. I want you to do it. I _want_ you to tear it. Tearme. I'll fucking come while you do it, I'll scream for you, I don't care who hears.”

“Law… no.”

“You self-righteous fuck. Eustass-ya would do it. If I told him to, he'd do anything. He’d tear my arm out of its socket, fuck me til I bled out…”

Sanji snarled at the name and gripped around the tattooed arm, trying to regain a sense of control. He gripped so hard the black lines were distorted, the tan skin underneath pinched red and white. It didn't help.

“Haven't you ever wanted to fuck someone raw? Make them bleed and beg? _BLACKLEG._ ”

Sanji knew he couldn't do the shit Law was spitting at him like a curse. Couldn't even piece together a refusal. And he couldn't let him go... he'd just keep fighting, force Sanji to injure him again.

He fit his forehead against the back of Law's neck. Breathed. And waited.

“ _Do it._ Please. God. _Why_ won't you do it?”

Sanji didn't have an answer. He just stayed like that for what seemed like forever, only shifting his weight to counter Law's occasional struggles. But even the Warlord had a limit, and eventually Sanji felt him wearing out his last reserves of frantic violence.

After that was gone, slow, pained breaths were all that remained.

“Okay,” Law whispered at last, tonelessly.

Sanji let go of him slowly. He rolled off onto his back next to the limp form and let the exhaustion set in. He stared up into the night sky, starting to shiver.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah I know, no sex again. I couldn't see Sanji rising to Law's provocations though.


	4. Ask

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here are the snuggles, you deviants. Snuggles with a warning for themes of violence and medical trauma.

 

Sanji clutched his sides as he lay on the deck, cold in a way that had nothing to do with the chill night air. Wrist throbbing. He listened to the dark heap next to him suck in measured breaths. Counting?

Eventually the hunched form hauled itself up to sit against the railing. Law was dragging his right arm, the fingers stiff and curled.

Concern pulled Sanji to his knees. “Shit, I did tear something in your arm, didn't I. Can I—?”

“No, just! Just wait. Gimme a moment.”

It took a couple tries but Law managed to convince his fingers to flick in the right way to summon a small, translucent _Room_ around himself. He put his left hand to his shoulder and concentrated, making small, searching motions. Unseen stitchings.

Sanji sat hunched over and watched the pantomimed surgery darkly. “Shit. _Shit_. That was fucked. That was so fucked. I hurt you, bad.”

“I made you do it.”

“I didn't _want_ to injure you.”

“It's hard to damage me permanently.”

“And you… fucking… ugh.” Sanji hugged himself, trying to stop shivering. _You fucked me up first,_ he wanted to say.

Law flexed his fingers a few times, until satisfied that they'd regained functionality. Then held out the hand to Sanji.

“Come here.”

“...What?”

“Just come here.”

Law pulled the unresisting blond to him, into the humming sphere of his _Room_. He held him, back against his chest, legs bracketing his, and Sanji slumped into his arms. The same D.E.A.T.H.-marked fingers that had wreaked havoc on his wrist a moment ago traveled over it again, knitting wrenched fibers back together.

Sanji felt the stiffness ease and the burning dull, but a clamor of things remained. Pain, and guilt and, and. Fuck. Betrayal?

“That doesn't fucking fix things,” he murmured.

“I know. I—”

“You said you wouldn't anymore. You _said_.”

“I'm sorry.”

“You know why I don't fight with my hands? They're everything, okay, they're how I cook, how I take care of my crew. Everything I'm worth.”

“I'm so fucking sorry.” He rested his head on Sanji's shoulder and fell silent. The tan, tattooed hands feathered over the backs of pale, unmarked ones.

“Law? Tell me what happened?”

A deep breath. “What do you mean?”

“I mean all… this. You freaking out just now, the disease. Just talk to me? Give me _something_ , so I understand.”

“Blackleg-ya… I’m tired.”

“Law, please.”

There was a pause. Then, “Okay… yeah, okay. One thing first though? This time, can you just… just stay where you are, _without moving?”_

“What, why?”

“Cuz if you… when you… Look. If I say to _not fucking touch me_ I really do need you to _not fucking touch me.”_

Sanji bristled. “I was trying to help you, asshole.”

“When I said not to.”

“Can't you just accept a fucking kindness?”

Law said nothing.

Guilt was starting to nag at Sanji, compounding his irritation. Fuck. What did he even have to feel guilty about? He sucked at his split lip and sighed.

“Alright,” he conceded tersely. “Yeah.”

Law breathed out again. Cleared his throat a couple times. “Okay. Ask whatever. I'll… I'll tell you. Some of it.”

“Okay. So your home? Flevance?”

“Mass extermination by the Marines, to cover up World Government complicity in the amber lead crisis. I escaped. Next question.”

“That's not really an ans—”

“Next.”

“Uh, kay… Escaped to where?”

“Not answering that right now. Next.”

Sanji couldn't help making a noise of frustration. “I thought we were talking about this, like actually talking.”

“That is what we're doing, yes. To my considerable discomfort.”

“You're being evasive.”

“Blackleg-ya I will do this on my own terms or not at all. Ask your next question.”

“Fuck, alright… Amber Lead?”

“Toxin that builds up in the tissues over generations. I had it; we all had it, everyone. Inherited, degenerative, fatal. Next.”

“Degenerative?”

“Makes you... makes you rot. I said next question.”

“But... you're cured?”

Law tensed. Sanji was suddenly aware that they were both still inside the humming orb—the sphere of Law’s total control. And that the tattooed fingers had slipped down to wrap loosely around his wrists.

“I… yes. No. It's. I keep trying to remove it all, but it's not just one thing I can grab and pull out or I would. I _wish_ I could. Just. Tear out my stomach or my lungs—I wish it was that easy. I'd fucking do it. But it's a billion little particles that have been there since birth, since before I was _me._  Everywhere, pockets of spreading rot. So I've done it gradually, excising the affected tissues, and leaving… holes... which I can kinda fill. I got it down to single parts per million soon after getting my devil fruit power, and almost nothing since, but I still…still..."

Sanji held perfectly still, almost not breathing, staring straight ahead while Law's words tumbled out and heated his neck.

“I scan myself every day. Sometimes I find traces. None for a couple years now, but, I mean, if you can detect it, then… I don't know. I've been up here scanning all night, since you told me you could taste it on me. Still can't find anything. But I _know_ it's there. I _know_.”

 _Since I told him… fuck._ Guilt broke Sanji's stillness. He started to look back over his shoulder. “Jesus… fuck. Law? Do you need…” _what? What do you need?_

Long fingers tightened abruptly around his wrists. " _No_ , stay there. Stay still.”

Sanji stilled.

Law controlled his breathing. “Next question.”

“We can stop if you—”

“You can _stop_ that coddling thing. I know you have more questions, just ask.”

“Maybe this will actually just like, bring up more bad shit for you. Set you off again.”

“It won't if you just fucking stay still and don't try to grab me or anything.”

“Right…” Sanji didn't entirely believe him. He felt trapped, uncertain. Once again, there was no way _at_ Law; he offered no clear right thing to do, no way to help, no safe place to stop. Nothing but extremes.

 _“You_ wanted to do this," Law grit out. "You wanted some piece of me. ‘To understand,’ you said. So _ask.”_

Sanji sighed and looked down at their bodies, interlocked like the catch of a mousetrap. Too late, he wondered what the fuck he was still doing here, in the arms of this dangerous, erratic near-stranger who had taunted him, injured him, threatened his crew… who could well be a wrong move and a finger flick away from inflicting on Sanji any of the twisted shit he'd demanded of him only minutes ago. He knew Law’s brutal reputation wasn’t for nothing.

And here Sanji was willingly putting his himself right into the jaws of this monster. Feeding himself to it.

He’s a fucking sap for wounded monsters, is the thing.

“So. Pain?” he asked casually.

Law snorted out a laugh, caught by surprise _._ “It’s…? I don't even know.”

“You seem to have a thing for it.”

“It’s an interesting sensory phenomenon. Interesting effects.”

Sanji got to the point. “Does it help?”

“Does it help…”

“Like, I dunno. Make stuff… good? Better?”

“I… Yeah. It does.” Which was not a real answer either, but Law didn’t elaborate. He lapsed into silence.

Sanji turned this over in his head. Tried to picture wanting something like that. If it had been his body trapped under Law's, his arm twisted back, his tendons screaming and snapping… Could he imagine being fucked like that? Wanting it? To have teeth and nails and Law’s cock all tearing into him at once…

Yeah. Yeah he could.

But he couldn't imagine doing it to someone else, no way.

Sanji shifted a little, uncomfortable. “I can't, uh. I don't think I'd be able to do anything like that for you. Fuck you up like... I mean, I fight people all the time, crack my share of skulls. But I couldn’t deliberately damage someone who trusted me.”

“No, nono I was all messed up when I said that stuff just now. I won't ask that of you.”

“Yeah, no. Not that. But…”

Law stilled, uncertain.

Sanji blew a shivery little breath out in a long stream. “If it helps, like, distract you? From stuff? You could… you could fuck me up instead. Take it out on me. I'll let you.”

“Holy _shit,_ Blackleg-ya.”

He shrugged. “That's also your thing, right? I can take it. And you can just fix me after anyway, so even if you break… something…”

 _“Oh my god,_ you don't need to, like…” The hands around Sanji's wrists suddenly let go, like they'd been burnt. Law wrapped them instead around his waist, tugging him close. “Don't just offer stuff like that after I went and… after everything, fuck.”

Sanji twisted to look over his shoulder. The face that stared back at him was pained. “I’m serious. You can hurt m—”

Law kissed him instead, stalling his words with his mouth. Sanji froze, then melted as an insistent tongue pushed his lips apart, opening him. The closed-off warlord had always refused to kiss like this before… God, his mouth was perfect. Sliding precise and possessive over Sanji's. Overwhelming…

Sanji was breathless and flushed when Law pulled away and pressed his forehead to the blond's temple.

“I don't _want_ you offering yourself up like meat. Just ‘taking it.’ I want you to enjoy being with me.”

“Mmf…” Sanji tried to collect his scattered thoughts. “I do. Like being with you.”

“So just be with me, and don’t worry about the other stuff, okay?”

“Mm, nope.” Sanji had found his train of thought again. “Gotta help. With the other stuff. Gonna help.”

Law raised an incredulous eyebrow. “Chyeh. You don’t fucking learn, do you.”

“Nah.”

“And anyway, you don’t like pain. So perhaps that's not the optimal way to—”

“Well it feels good to _you,_ right? Pain? So show me.”

“I… don't think it's a taste you can just pick up.”

“Try me.”

_“Blackleg-ya.”_

_“Law.”_

“Tch.” Law gave in. One usually had to, with Sanji. The darker man licked over the swollen gash in the other's pouting bottom lip, and then gave it a swift, hard nip.

 _“Khh! ”_ Sanji flinched. Then scowled at his own reaction. “Waitwait, I wasn’t expecting it that time. Try again.”

“What do you mean, ‘not expecting it.’ You literally just—”

“Nono, once more. Okay go.”

This time Law slowly sucked up the lip—that soft little bed of blood and nerves, all ripped—and gently ground a canine into the wound. He felt the body in his arms tense, Sanji fighting to not react; failing. A shuddering breath escaped him and heated Law’s lips.

 _Fucking exquisite. All of him, god._ Law eased off, savoring that shudder with only a shadow of unease.

“Yeah. Uh. Still hate it.” Sanji frowned at himself and rubbed his lip.

“No shit huh.” A shadow of a smile ghosted over his face, unseen by Sanji. He placed a tattooed hand over the one worrying at the split lip. Knit the open sore shut with a slight press.

“But I could probably get used to it?”

“No need,” he turned Sanji’s face toward him again and flicked a probing tongue over the newly healed lip. “I think… I could get used to sweet things instead.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my god I set out to write smut with this series and then the drama got out of hand and stretched out to fill like three chapters, and there's just EMOTIONS happening everywhere what am I gonna DO with myself
> 
> I need a hug


	5. Think

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No particular warnings, just minor gore, usual themes of violence, and maybe a little warning for nail biting / compulsive skin stuff. Angst. This is angstfic now.
> 
> I’ve written up a bunch of stuff, but I’m having trouble just letting it go and posting, so I’m gonna do it a little at a time here so it's less scary. Sorry to be so sporadic! First up is a painfully introspective Law. 
> 
> EDIT: Oh! Some angstbeats: KMFDM, "Save Me", was on repeat while writing.

 

Law lay awake in the near-dark, watching Sanji frown in his sleep. 

Brain buzzing. Skin crawling. To avoid the impulse to scan himself for disease again he’d begun to chew his nail folds, like he hadn’t done since he was… what, 14? 

_ Childishness. You’re slipping. _

He tore a little shred off with his teeth and sighed.

Sanji had insisted on spending the night together this time—a first. Law had given in. It was a small request to indulge after everything. They were tucked away in the library, on pads and blankets pulled from the window benches. The blond had passed out almost immediately, carefully not touching Law but still curling toward him.

So still. Like marble. Dreaming.

_ So exposed. Like glass. Waiting. _

Peaceful.

_ Pretty. _

Law bit up another piece and followed it down to the mantle, breathing and thinking and  _ not _ scanning himself again just watching and buzzing and thinking and  _ thinking…  _ trying to sort through everything going on in his head.

\---

First, always: the darkness looming on the horizon as they sped toward their destination. Dressrosa. And Doflamingo… 

Law could feel his former mentor’s presence like a gravitational pull, a black hole, distant but inescapable. Like every fiber of him was warping, getting pulled toward it. Like unseen hands were closing around him and digging into him, cold and crushing and just just just fuck unbearable like a full-body itch like being trapped like—

_ Like coming home. _

Like going to his death.

He bit up the hardened skin of one knuckle and dug into it until his heart rate dropped again. He knew these particular feelings well: Fear. 

_ Fate. _

Hate. Carefully cultivated, consuming hate.

Fear and hate: Law drew a mental line around them and put them aside. 

\---

There was also the gravitational pull he was speeding away from. Someone he'd left behind, for good this time. A certain supernova who had so riveted him for the past two years. A certain force of chaos. Violence. Gleeful excess. Unrestrained wanting and needing and _having_. Freedom. Eustass-ya.

That fading presence—that absence—he felt in his chest. Not like an itch; like an ache. Like the disorientation after carving another tainted piece of flesh out of himself. Like the cold cling of fog. Like knowing you've forgotten something important. Like…? Like what? 

_...like nothing. It’s nothing. _

No, it was something.

He had examined this feeling carefully in the past weeks, turned it over and over in his mind but still hadn't decided what it was.

_ It doesn’t matter anymore. Put it aside. _

Yeah… It was too late for that shit now.

Law drew a hazy line around it and tried to put it aside.

\---

And then there was this. This stubborn,  _ stupid _ boy lying next to him. Who didn't know the first thing about Law's toxic burdens but seemed so determined to take them all on for him. Who just wouldn’t leave well enough alone.

_ Irritating. Weak…  _

No, wait, fuck. That wasn’t fair. It was altruistic, brave of him to put himself out there like that. Right?

Sharp eyes watched the pale chest rise and fall, the mouth twist. No doubt dreaming of his crew, occupied with them even as he slept. 

Sanji’s neck and shoulders were glowing in the ambient light, pale hair falling over his face. He looked… noble. He looked tired but not worn down. He looked so fucking young. You could almost call his face beautiful except for its care-worn twist [1] and the rough hair of his chin and upper lip [2] that said he reserved little of that care for himself. God, Sanji didn’t need more burdens to carry; he had plenty of people to look after without rushing in to save Law from his demons… 

_ That’s _ what he looked like. Like some sainted fucking knight, a martyr carved out of white stone, resting atop a tomb. Still as death.

Well Law didn’t need whatever bullshit salvation he offered. Let alone his empathy, for fuck sake. 

_ Such suffocating shit. Insulting.  _

Though maybe… admirable? 

_ No, repulsive. Degrading. Weak. _

Law tasted copper and drew his hand back to scowl at his raw cuticles. This introspective shit wasn’t helping. Everything was coming apart in a grating clamor despite his careful process of containment.  _ God, _ what he  _ wanted _ to do was… shatter Sanji’s beautiful fucking marble face. Make his mouth bleed again. Show him what all that selfless shit cost in the real world. Tear into him so his tough facade cracked and he screamed and screamed… 

He shifted guiltily and forced his mind back onto its methodical track. He was firmly resolved to keep those darker impulses well under wraps. Now more than ever.

_ Why, though? _ that ever-present part of him purred. 

Law closed his eyes and shook his head to clear it.

_ He wants it. Did you see how receptive he became when you held his wrists? How hard he gets every time you push him to the ground and hold him down while you fuck him? When it hurts him and he tries to hide it…  _

“Shut up,” Law muttered to himself.

_ He  _ wants _ you to do it. He even  _ asked _ for it just now—or was about to, when you decided to get all romantic. _

“It wasn’t like that. He was offering something... something pure.”

_ He was offering himself, because he  _ wants _ to be taken and crushed. Used. That's just what he is, what he's for. _

“You’re twisting this.”

_ Don’t be so soft. You know what that earns. _

Law laughed darkly. Fucking talking to himself in the middle of the night, what a joke.

_ You know very well indeed. What does sweetness always get one, little Law? _

“It doesn’t have to be that way.”

_ Heheh. Heh. Open your eyes. _

Law opened his eyes. 

The pale figure lying before him was… different. The blond hair and lean body were the same but Sanji’s face was marred, marks across the eyelid and mouth. A familiar harlequin eye and wide Glasgow grin. And a bloodless, gaping bullet hole spreading through the middle of him. Cora-san?

“God…  _ fuck… ” _ He knew it wasn’t real. Not real. Not real.

_ Do you ever wonder why Roci never keeps you company in your lonely head, little Law? Why it’s only you and me in here? _

The bullet holes in Sanji’s chest were spreading. Multiplying. Invading his skin until he was more air than flesh.

“Because you fucking killed him…”

_ Because you don't truly believe in any of that nonsense. That knight-in-shining-armor shit. You know how that ends. _

Law pulled himself over to the disintegrating body. His mind screamed at him to put up a Room, to fill the gaps, bring him back… _ Not real,  _ he told himself. 

_ You know there are only two kinds of people in the world. _

“Shut  _ up.” _

_ The victors, and the victims. _

Abruptly the still form flinched, shuddered as though in pain. Doffy’s low chuckle echoed in Law’s head.

_ And the victims love it. _

“Blackleg-ya?” Was he really writhing like that, or was it Law's mind baiting him? He drew closer, bent close over him. Hot little breaths beat on his face. Shit.

“Sanji...”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Got the next chapter ready to go too, just gotta get over myself and stop picking at little details. Couple days! Promise.
> 
> Oh yeah, footnotes...
> 
> [1] ‘Bitchface,’ as Zoro calls it. Zoro is a rude motherfucker.  
> [2] ‘Pubestache,’ as Zoro calls it. Jesus, Zoro.


	6. Dream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate title: “mmMff!”
> 
> Usual warnings apply, nothing specific. Some body horror (not real).

 

Sanji was lost in dark dreams. Dreams of waking to find his body patterned with deep, bloodless holes. Spreading clusters of open sores turning his flesh to sponge, infecting him with emptiness.

He could feel the holes deepening through him, slick and gaping, cold air brushing his insides. Someone’s breath on his viscera...

_You’ve been infected._

“Law?”

A twisted shadow-Law crawled over him, dragging dagger-like fingers over the perforated skin.

_But here… I found the source._

He plunged long, cold knife-fingers into the holes in Sanji's chest, digging deep and clutching around his pounding heart…

“NO—!”

_“Sanji?”_

\---

 

Sanji jerked awake, breathing hard, damp with cold sweat.

Law was hovering over him, hand lightly touching Sanji's chest, face creased in… worry?

“Your heart rate spiked sharply. Nightmare?”

Sanji shook his head dismissively and ran a hand over himself—no holes. Of course not.

Grey eyes were zipping back and forth over his face like they were reading him, hand brushing searchingly over the pale chest. Sanji thought of knife-fingers pressing into open sores and a full-body shudder rippled through him.

“Hey, um. You’re probably okay.” Law tried to inject some warmth into it but it just came out in his ‘doctor’ voice.

“Great, thanks,” Sanji snorted.

“Tch. Well what does one do to be comforting, then.”

“Dunno. Don't worry about it. It’ll pass.” He crossed his arms over himself defensively, willing his screaming nerves to calm.

Law considered the problem seriously for a moment, then tried something else. He brought his hand up to smooth down the hair trailing over Sanji's face and tucked behind his ear. Which was… nice, actually. Whenever Zoro did this it made Sanji feel all serene and sleepy. Strong hands being soft, when he knew how hard they could grip.

But Zoro’s hands were warm and relaxed; Law’s were cold, probing. And his face, in the starlit shadows, was a black hole that Sanji’s racing mind filled with nightmare features.

“Your heart rate is going up, not down.” Law paused uncertainly.

“Yeah, um.”

“What am I doing wrong?”

“Nothing, this is good.”

“You’re so confusing.” There was an edge of irritation in Law's voice. “You’re not ‘good,’ I can feel your pulse racing—”

Sanji flinched as he felt Law's hand dip below his jawline onto his pulse. He realized he had grabbed the tattooed hand. “Shit. Uh.”

“Blackleg-ya? Holy shit, it's okay.”

“I know. Sorry, fuck.”

“I’m trying to _help._ I'm not gonna do anything bad. _”_

“I _know.”_ He didn't let go, though.

Law regarded him with confusion for a moment, fingers flexing in Sanji’s grasp, before his gaze settled into something hard. “And I’m not going to infect you either, if that’s what’s got you all fucked up.”

“No! No, I believe you that it’s not contagious. It’s—”

“You were dreaming about it. I saw you check yourself when you woke up. I know that motion.”

This was going badly. “It’s just what you said about like, rotting and… holes. Stuck with me, I guess. Doesn’t mean I think you’re… that you’re…”

“Dangerous?” Law asked flatly.

Sanji felt his own irritation spike. “Well, Law. You are that.” He let the hand go with a little huff and steeled himself to feel its weight on his neck.

It hovered uncertainly before drawing away.

“Blackleg-ya, I don’t want you to be afraid of… me touching you.”

“EXCUSE me I am definitely,” Sanji blustered, _“not_ afraid of you. God, ego much?”

“Well you get all ‘wahhh’ whenever I get near you, so—”

“It’s just cuz of the fucking nightmare.”

“A nightmare about _me_ infec—mmMff—”

Sanji decided to resolve the touch issue by mashing his face against Law’s. His heart was definitely lodged in his throat but he’d deny it until he turned blue.

Their teeth knocked jarringly. The kiss had all the nervous tension and none of the finesse of their last, but it diverted them from that precarious topic. Sanji gripped at Law’s face and sucked at his lower lip. On an impulse he nipped at it and felt the other drag in a breath before surging against him.

“Law?”

“Mmff? What.”

“Fuck me, okay?”

Law shifted in surprise. “Christ.”

“Come on.”

“Maybe you should top this time.”

“No, I want you to distract me. Law… Law…”

He jumped again when Law placed firm hands around his head and took control of the kiss, slowing them down and deepening it.

Law pulled back to look at him critically. “Is this you throwing yourself on the fire again?”

 _“No,_ shut up. This is for me. It’ll work the nightmare out of my system. It’s just cuz of adrenaline and whatever, I told you.” Sanji started to shove his pants off. “Come on. You asked what you should do to be comforting, right?”

Law looked skeptical. But he helped Sanji wriggle out of his pants (which was good because his stupid hands were shaking and he was even fucking that up) and pulled the pale body to him.

\---

 

Sanji did feel like glass against him. Law was wrapped around Sanji’s side, opening him with a practiced hand. The pale skin was cool, and the little involuntary jerks whenever tattooed hands moved unexpectedly made Law think of fault lines shooting through brittle sea ice. The cracking that preceded a plunge.

The tough-acting boy was definitely afraid of him. Which… kinda hurt.

Law would have found it crushing if he didn’t find it so damn arousing. And Sanji was hard, receptive, pressing back against him, shivering as much from pleasure as fear.

_Made to be wrecked._

Law tried to suppress this thought. But it was so hard once he had Sanji spread out under him, stretched tight around his cock, tremors running over the taut skin of his stomach. Law held his legs open as gently as he could and sank into him slow and careful, but the tension never left his body.

“God, just relax Blackleg-ya.”

“YOU relax.”

“I am completely relaxed, you're the one freaking out.”

Sanji jabbed him with his heel, piqued. “I’m fine, _you're_ being all uptight. Treating me like glass just cuz you're feeling guilty or whatever. I like it hard, remember?”

“It’s _not_ because I’m… whatever, I thought I was supposed to be comforting you.”

“Well you suck at it, so.”

Law was reaching the end of a real short rope. “Blackleg-ya, you just fuckin excel at provoking the exact opposite sentiment.”

“And your face is dumb.”

“Jesus Fuck—” Law looked around.

“Are we fucking or are we not, here.” Sanji crossed his arms. “I got a nightmare I gotta get back to if this isn't going anywhere.”

“Nono, we're definitely fucking,” Law was sifting around for something on the floor next to them. “I'm just gonna try something.”

“Are you gonna try growing a di—puahhh—mmmff!!”

Law stuffed his fucking shirt in his mouth. Sanji startled and gagged and went to pull it out but Law caught his wrists.

“Heyhey, leave it, this’ll help us both relax, haha…” One blue eye glared at him and he grinned. Muffled rage was a _very_ good look on the blond. “Do feel free to kick if it's hurting anything more than your dignity.”

Sanji huffed around the shirt but didn't lash out, and Law took that as his go-ahead. He held the fisted hands against the floor and ground deep into that exquisite body. Hard, as requested.

Bracing against Sanji’s wrists, he could shove his body weight into him and watch him curl and squirm. His hips impacted against the soft inner thighs. Sanji really did like it hard… he was making little noises around the cloth and his dick was bobbing against Law with each jarring thrust, desperately hard, precum threading between their stomachs.

“Mmf… mmh… mm!”

Law’s conflicted uncertainty was melting away. It felt so _natural._ “God you're perfect like this, you know that?”

Sanji made a muffled, fluttering sound in his throat. The bony fingers wrapped around his wrists were bruising, twisting, but he’d asked for it—fucking asked for it. And the cold in his veins had turned to heat. He looked up at the dark form hovering over him. Distorted shadow face, knife hands digging into his skin.

“Fucking made to be wrecked…”

Sanji clenched and arched suddenly. Law felt him tighten, and pushed deep and hard into the tense curve of him. He came in spurting ropes until he was empty and heaving against the body trapping him down. Law pulled out and with a few short strokes spilled over the shuddering form too. So that the perfect marble body was a mess, all streaked with evidence of its harsh use. Cracks in sea ice.

\---

 

As soon as his hands were released, Sanji snatched the shirt out of his mouth and sucked gasping breaths.  “Fuck… holy fuck…”

“Good?”

“Yeah, good. Intense.”

“Yeah…”

He rubbed his wrists and examined the darkening marks, layered on top of those from the earlier injury. “Oh hey, souvenirs. What can your devil fruit deal do about bruises?”

“Not a thing,” Law leaned back on his heels to evaluate his handiwork. A post-orgasmic low was settling over him, and his guilty uncertainty was creeping back in. The blond looked the opposite of comforted. He looked abused—all disheveled and dripping and marked up.

But he wasn’t shivering and shrinking away from Law anymore. He actually seemed animated.

“Figures. Wait, did you come _on_ me? Tch.” He sighed at the sticky mess coating him.

Law shrugged and sponged it up with the shirt.

“Son of a bitch, my shirt. Why couldn’t you use yours? You’re like some defiling demon, spreading ruin to all things good and fashionable.” Sanji went on griping and chattering and cracking his joints, apparently relieved of his nerves.

“I suppose it’s what I’m good at.” Law pulled his pants back on, flopped over on the mat and closed his eyes.

“Yeah.” Sanji turned toward him and grinned. _“Very_ good.”

“Fabulous.”

“Hey no rolling over and going the fuck to sleep. You wanna fuck me, you gotta deal with me after too.” Sanji banged on the arm that was slung over Law’s face and earned himself a scowl.

“Seems like my defiling duties are done. Lemme know when you require further dick.”

“What, are you pouting about something?”

“No.”

“Nah, I guess that’s just how your face looks, huh.”

“You—!” Law grabbed the filthy shirt balled up next to them and tried to stuff it in Sanji’s mouth again.

“Fuck! Now it’s on my face!” There was a brief scuffle for control of the shirt. Sanji won and stuffed it under the mat.

Law sighed and thumped back down on the mat again. “Just let me sleep, Blackleg-ya. It’s been a fucked up night and I’m not exactly a cuddler.”

Sanji sighed and located his shorts, pants, cigs. “You were doing fine before. It was nice. Do it again.”

“Well apparently I suck at it, so I’ll stick to my strengths.”

“Is that what you’re mad about? I was just teasing to get you to loosen up. You’re so touchy.”

Law turned the other way and pretended to sleep. Sanji sat cross-legged, frowning at the turned back and drumming his fingers on his knee. He took out a cigarette but then remembered he wasn't allowed to smoke in here. Ugh. He couldn’t have ANYTHING.

“Hey, want food?”

“What? No, I want sleep.”

Sanji analysed the hunched shoulders for a moment longer before sighing and settling back on the heels of his hands.

“You know, you don’t have to fuckin take _everything_ as proof that your humanity is like, broken.”

At this, Law’s head whipped around and fixed him with an incredulous glare. _“What?”_

“Just saying. I don’t think you’ve done anything wrong, not really, but you keep, like… putting yourself in the corner.”

“How’s your wrist feeling, Blackleg.”

“Okay, so I don’t know if that’s a rebuttal or a threat? But it’s actually fine, thank you. And hey, we learned a thing, right?”

The tense lump on the floor scoffed. “Clearly YOU haven’t learned a thing.”

Sanji met his glare with a casual shrug.

“Blackleg-ya, I have boundaries for good reasons, and if I seem to be withdrawing, maybe it’s because I’m trying to keep my promise to you. And failing, but still.”

“Oh my god don’t be so dramatic. I told you, I can take whatever you throw at me. I’m not soft.”

Law rubbed the bridge of his nose where he swore a migraine was taking root. “So. If extreme violence doesn’t deter you, what do I have to do to end this conversation?”

“Lemme sleep on your shoulder???”

“That’ll also end in violence.”

“Okay, see, I doubt that.”

“I’m completely serious,” Law finally turned back over and faced Sanji. “Eustass-ya was one of the few people I wasn’t afraid to share a bed with, because whenever I had a nightmare and attacked him in my sleep, he could easily overpower me. Of course… he’d usually then take the opportunity to fuck me, but that fell under our somnophilia agreement, so it more or less worked out...”

“Oh. Well that’s fucked up.”

“Hence why I was awake to rouse you from your nightmare. I was planning to forgo one night of sleep so I didn’t accidentally murder you.”

Sanji was undeterred. “Well, okay, this is still a non-issue then, cuz I can totally overpower you too. I’m uh, not gonna fuck you after, though.”

“You… wh… Okay first of all, there’s no fuckin way you could overpower me.”

“I totally beat you when you were freaking out, and you were completely awake then!”

“That was _once,_ and you were also awake at the time. It’ll be a little different when you wake up with my hands around your neck.”

“Nope, it’ll be fine and manageable. I’ll just kick you.” Sanji’s optimism was only matched by his stubbornness. Also, frigging Eustass’ name had come up and there was no way that psycho bitch was having something Sanji couldn’t. “I’ll get a few handprints on my neck, you’ll get a few footprints on your ass, and everyone will get to cuddle.”

Law had nothing left to throw at this inexhaustible opponent. He stared at him, at a loss.

“Deal?” Sanji grinned, knowing he’d won.

Law shook his head to himself but lay his arm out flat. “Fine. Here. Shut up.”

“YES!”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So when I say I’m gonna update in two days max I mean like a month obvs. Sohhrry. But I think I’ve found my groove again in terms of drama/smut/banter balance?
> 
> Anyway, next up is ZoSan drama/smut/backstory chapter YES.


	7. Traces I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I promised ZoSan was next but I LIED. The ZoSan chapter is getting way out of hand and needs work so in the meantime here. Cuddles and awkwardness and ‘Law what the FUCK’

 

Sanji woke at dawn, all stiff and sore. His face was planted against a shoulder bonier than the Reaper's own asscheek. Despite all his epic grouching Law had actually fallen asleep— _with_ Sanji on his shoulder, and without murdering him.

“Victory,” Sanji whispered to himself, and peeled his face off the tattooed skin to examine his slumbering prize.

He was pretty fuckin nice to look at, if uncomfortable to sleep on. Short black hair sticking up at all angles, fine-featured face framed by precisely clipped sideburns and goatee. His shoulders were broad and did that tapering V-thing to his narrow waist. He was lean but definitely not scrawny—great muscle definition. But his collarbones and… actually, all his bones did this protruding thing that the stark blackwork tattoos only emphasized. Made him look kinda skeletal.

And… now that he knew to look, Sanji could also see broad areas of Law’s chest and arms where the tan skin was waxy and hard. Scar tissue. It wouldn’t even be visible except for the way those areas didn’t stretch like the rest with the rising and falling of his chest.

Sanji reached a curious hand out to a spot where the black lines intersected with the waxy skin.

A twitch and his hand was snatched out of the air. “What are you doing.”

“Touchin your tats.”

“Don't touch my tats.”

“I slept on your tats and I can't touch em?”

Law waved a dismissive hand and stretched sleepily. “Whatever. Just don't do unexpected stuff while I'm passed out.”

Sanji grinned and planted his head back on the bony shoulder. “You fell asleep after all, and no one died.”

“Yeah… this time. I’m not keen to play cuddle/kill roulette every night, though.”

He sounded all severe about it, but he wasn’t pushing him away. His arm crooked over Sanji’s head, fingers threading absently through the mussed hair. He seemed content to let the quiet moment draw out a little longer.

“I still think it’d be fine.” Sanji sighed. He had to get up to make breakfast soon, but he wanted to make the most of the shoulder offer while it stood. He looked at the waxy spots again but didn’t touch. “Are the burn-looking spots from the disease?”

He felt Law’s entire body go rigid with tension, and regretted his big mouth.

“Obviously,” Law shoved at his head. “Move, I’m getting up.”

“I was just asking. No judgement.”

“Is that what you were trying to touch? You want your fucking fingers to rot off?”

“Ugh, we’ve been over this, I know it’s not contagious. I was just curious.” Sanji lolled his head as hard as he could in passive resistance, but was rolled off the shoulder and onto the floor anyway.

“Sorry,” he mumbled.

Law sat up facing away from him and sighed. “Yeah… no, it’s not. I’m just. I dunno. On edge.”

“What, cuz Dressrosa?”

“Hm? Uh, yeah. My fucking nerves are frayed all to hell.”

Sanji hummed and stretched out. “Food will fix it.”

Law turned to make some sarcastic remark, but suddenly turned sheet white and stared at Sanji’s torso. “BLACKLEG?? Holy shit, your skin!”

Sanji looked down at himself but didn’t see anything. He was still kinda messy, but. “What?”

“Your fucking skin is peeling!”

It… definitely wasn’t. “Law.” Sanji sat up and flaked off some of the stuff. “Cumcrust.”

“What?”

“It’s just cumcrust. I’m fucking covered in dried cum.”

There was a moment of silence while this sunk in.

“Jesus fucking fuck…” Law hid his face in his hands and laughed shakily at himself.

“What else would it be, idiot?”

“I don’t even know! I just had this moment where I thought I’d like… whatever.”

“That you’d infected me? But that’s not even—” Sanji lost what he was going to say when Law thumped his head onto his shoulder and heaved a heavy sigh that kinda sounded like a curse. “Whoa. Uh.”

“Fuuuuuuhhhhck…”

Sanji wasn’t totally sure that the guy wouldn’t flip out again if he tried to pat his back or whatever, so he just kinda sat there.

“You got a lot of stuff going on, huh.”

“You have no idea,” Law mumbled.

“Okay, I need to wash before I cook. This shit is flaking all over both of us.” Sanji prodded him but Law stayed flopped against him, mumbling defeatedly.

“Dried ejaculate, for the love of fuck…”

“Yeah. Which IS your fault.”

“...I’m acquainted with every disturbing foible of the human body. I have scraped necrotic tissue from gangrenous feet and peeled the pericardium from a beating heart...”

“Okay you've WHAT.”

“...And fucking _cumcrust_ is what gets to me.”

“Like, a heart that a guy was using at the time, or?”

“He was mostly done with it,” was Law's morose reply.

 

———

 

Law declined the invite to a shared shower, but agreed to get Sanji a new shirt from his locker since he was the one who’d gotten the last one all defiled.

Now that the shit that had surfaced the previous night had mostly spent its sting, and he'd even slept a bit (with an unfamiliar presence nearby, which was weird), he was feeling a great deal more… stable. Optimistic, even.

He let the early dawn light color his thoughts as he strode down to the men's quarters. Sanji wasn't such trying company once you got him to sit still. The ship, not as claustrophobic as it had felt before. And this shirt, it wasn't actually that… wait, no, the shirt was still awful. Like, objectively. He paused in his rosy reflections and frowned at it. Some kind of ombré, dip dyed, artfully distressed button-down thing. The cum stains fit right in. Ugh.

But aside from that, yeah, sunniness all around. He was definitely still gonna hole up in some corner for the rest of the day and scan every square inch of himself, but for reasonable doctor reasons.

He sauntered into the men's quarters. He actually hadn't been in here before. Okay, table, bunks, lockers. And…

“The hell  _you_ doin in here, Nosferatu.”

And a bunch of snoring crewmembers and one very awake swordsman. Zoro was sitting up with his back against the table, polishing his swords. Law recognized the situation as a potentially sticky one. He looked at the fashion-forward cumrag in his hands and applied his sharp mind to thinking of a believable excuse.

“Getting Blackleg-ya a different shirt.”

Ah fuck. He just sucked at lying.

Zoro repeated this, slowly. “Getting ‘Blackleg-ya’… a different shirt.”

“Yes.”

“You.”

“Mmhm.”

Well this was going great. Continue right along, Law. He went over to the line of lockers and stared at them. Fuck. Which one.

“Why?” Zoro persisted.

Um. “This one… sucks.”

Well, that was true enough. He heard a terse snort. And then an actual laugh.

“It does… it really fuckin does. It's the worst shirt I've ever seen, I’ve always hated that one. Looks like a cumrag. Hah. _Hahahaaa…”_

Law chanced a look over, and the swordsman was running a hand through his swept-back moss-green hair, a distant, slightly shell-shocked look on his face. He seemed like he hadn't slept. This wasn't an expression Law knew how to decode, so he went back to staring at the lockers.

He heard the other man rise and come to stand beside him. They looked at each other, Zoro with muscled arms crossed, Law trying _not_ to seem like he'd recently been balls deep in anything the guy might consider his territory. He wasn't sure where to put his arms to correctly communicate this, though.

“What.” Zoro questioned.

“What… what?”

“What’s up.”

“...uh, not much? How. How are you.”

“No, like,” Zoro gestured at the lockers. “What’s your problem.”

“Oh. Not sure which locker is his.”

Zoro gestured to one on the left, and then they looked at each other for another moment before Law turned away and went to open the damn thing. He’d half expected Zoro to block his way or get in his face, but he was just watching him. He opened the locker to find a row of neatly hung shirts that were no improvement on the cumrag. He scoffed lightly to himself and leafed through them.

“That shitty cook got you running errands for him now?”

Law hummed vaguely.

“You don't seem to mind his highness’ company, though.”

“He’s one of the few here who doesn't seem to mind mine.” Law said, truthfully.

“Oh. I guess.”

“And the energy level around the rest of the ship can be excessive.”

“Hah. True enough. That's why I hang out in the kitchen too. Or… I did, until… we uh… Actually, forget all that. Just don't let him rope you into doing his bidding too much, that guy gets pushy.”

Law shot him a surprised look out of the corner of his eye. Holy shit the guy had _not the slightest clue_ that Law might be banging the sweet, limber fuck out of his man. Trafalgar Law, in the boys’ room, waving the murder weapon around like a flag. And Zoro in the dark.

Where the fuck did they make them this pure?

And where the fuck did they make shirts this stupid… for the love of god. He sighed at the array.

Zoro seemed to be feeling helpful. “There's t-shirts and whatever he wears on work days at the bottom of the locker. Hiding his porn.”

“His… what, like, _Marine Men Monthly_ or some shit?”

“Just look,” he watched Law with vague amusement now.

Law dug down in the bottom of the locker and found a decent bunch of plain tees and actual jeans (tailored, obviously). And under that… romance novels.

 _“The Prince and the Priestess?”_ He read the first title incredulously.

“They're all the same. Love and drama and tragic pasts and dying nobly in some weepy maiden's arms. Lots of fucking if you can stand the stupid floral allegories. It’s… nauseating.”

Law put the damn thing back. “Huh. I prefer nonfiction myself.”

“Hah, I'm sure. _‘Vitals of Vivisection.’”_

“Oh hey, I haven't read that one. Is it in the library here?”

“...”

“Or… no?”

“... ... ...No.”

Law caught the other's perturbed stare and realized he'd just slaughtered a joke. Welp. He turned back to the jumble and selected a plain black t-shirt. And… on second thought, black jeans too.

Zoro threw an arched eyebrow at Law's choices for Sanji. “That combo’s really not his style.”

He tsked. “I think you'll find my influence an improvement.”

The swordsman gave him a sidelong look and didn’t say anything.

Law had what he'd come for. He stood and left abruptly.

"Psycho," Zoro murmured into the still room after he'd gone. But yeah, maybe not the worst?

 _Meathead,_ Law thought as he climbed back up the steps. But pretty okay, generally.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Zoro's the one who gets Marine Men Monthly. It's a muscle mag fulla masc shit; many dicks.
> 
> Law doesn't really do "porn" porn, but he sure has a lot of anatomy textbooks in his quarters.


	8. Traces II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some FUCKIN and some fuckery. Still the same morning. Still not to the real ZoSan bit--next chapter, okay?

 

“So you see the issue here,” Sanji regarded his black-clad reflection with a critical eye.

“I'm not seeing much amiss.” Law stared. His ass looked fucking amazing in those jeans what the fuck. Why didn't he wear this shit all the time?

Sanji snorted. “Law, up here.”

“Hm?”

“Okay, besides being more of a club look, there's no fucking sleeves to hide my wrists and the neckline is…” He gestured at Law’s clearly-visible work.

“Purple is a good color on you, though.” He ducked as a damp towel was tossed at him.

“You might think this is funny, but I'm trying to be discreet here? Fuck.” He turned back to the mirror and frowned at a particularly dark hickey on his collarbone.

Law sighed from where he was seated, leaning against the bathroom wall. “Yeah, about that. Your swordsman was awake when I went down there.”

 _“Fuck,_ what? Did he see the… What’d he say?”

“Nothing, he didn't catch on. Somehow. We actually had an okay exchange. But he's… he's still pretty invested in you, from what I could tell. You know that?”

Sanji scowled. “Don't care.”

“So you keep saying. So what's the point of us sneaking around, is what I'm saying. Kinda unfair for him to keep thinking… that like, you guys are…”

“Tch.” Sanji threw him a strange look, then went to rifle through the cabinet for something. “I thought you didn't want drama.”

“I don't. That’s kinda—”

“So shut up and go get me a different shirt. One with sleeves.”

Law chewed his lip and stayed where he was, watching the blond. Sanji really did look good in all that form-fitting black, lavished with traces of Law’s touch. Marks of intent, not infection. As symmetrical and sprawling as his own tattoos.

He looked like… _Law’s._

Law looked thoughtfully at the door.

Sanji didn't notice, busy spilling toothbrushes and little bottles of stuff all over the floor. “Cmon, before the girls get up and need the bathroom. Sleeves and collar.”

“You could wear one of mine,” Law smirked at the mental image of Sanji in one of his own hoodies… it would probably hang off his slighter shoulders just a little too big, and Law could run his hands up under it…

“Yeah that would be only slightly less discreet than me walking around shirtless and covered in your cum,” Sanji snarked at him and Law’s grin grew even wider.

He got up finally, and crossed to the door.

“Hurry it up, before someone walks in on me looking like your chew toy…” Sanji was back in front of the mirror, with a handful of bandages to wrap around his wrists.

Law locked the door.

“Uh.” Sanji cast him a wary look through the mirror.

“So no one walks in,” Law explained, very logically. He snaked his arms around Sanji’s narrow waist from behind, and pushed his head to one side with an insistent nuzzle at his jaw.

“It’s morning and this is the only bathroom on the ship and you are doing the opposite of helping me cover up HEY—”

“Don’t you think it’d be simpler if you could just walk around wearing my marks openly?”

“No that’d make things _not_ simple…” Sanji huffed, trying to keep his balance as the taller man crowded against him. He banged a hand onto the wall next to the mirror to brace himself. He tried to discourage the tattooed hands that already had his jeans undone and were running over his… very urgent erection. Damn. Law was hard too. Needy. He pulled Sanji’s hips against him, grinding on that flawless ass and throwing him off-balance.

“I could give you one you couldn’t cover up. So everyone could see I've had you.”

“Yeah NOPE.”

“Hah… no, huh.”

“FUCK no.”

Law sighed. “That mean I can't fuck ya either?”

“Idiot.”

“Okay I'm getting better at speaking ‘Sanji,’ so I know 'ow’ means stop, and I'm pretty sure insults are either endearments or encouragement, but…”

_“Idiot…”_

Law laughed into his neck.

He looked at their reflection in the mirror. Sanji’s skin was still flushed from the shower, purple dots peeking out tellingly, his clothes pulled loose around him. Under his curtain of hair his face was even more flushed. Law drank in the sight of himself surrounding the blond, trapping him, chin hooked over Sanji's shoulder and one inked hand wrapped just just tight enough around his dick. He was putty in Law's hands, leaning into him even while he squirmed in his grip.

Law eased the other tattooed hand up under the t-shirt and felt a little shiver.

“Ahh, fuck…”

He slipped the hand lightly over serrated ribs and up, teasing at a pebbled nipple.

Sanji shook himself. “Okay yeah. Yup.”

“Yeah?”

 _“Yeah._ Shithead.”

There was a flurry of grabbing and shuffling and muttered curses.

“God you're a squirmer, hold still.”

“Ah! Lube. _Lube,_ motherfucker.”

“On it. Shut up.”

“Holy shit _—ah—_ how are your hands so cold, fuckin ice princess, you.”

“How are you so chatty with most of a dick in you.”

“How are you so stupid in the face—agh! _Ahh…_ ahfuck… _fuck…”_

So obviously as soon as Law had Sanji up against the wall and was beating the sass out of him with short, hard thrusts, the door handle rattled.

_“Oh Jesus fucking—”_

_“Shh!”_

Law stilled but held them in place, Sanji immobile against the wall under him.

“Curlyfuck, how the hell are you STILL taking up the fucking bathroom.”

Oh SHIT Zoro.

Law shoved Sanji who elbowed him back and swallowed a few times.

“Fuckin… changing. Fuck off.”

 _“Still?_ Captain Chocula brought you your funeral garb like forever ago and you still primping?”

“Yeah… uhh… ‘funeral garb’ is the problem here.”

They heard Zoro scoff from behind the door. “Chyeh. Yeah, figured. Guy doesn’t really get your style. Such as it is.”

Law made a growling noise somewhere in his chest. He abruptly tightened his grip on Sanji and shoved into him again.

“Unngh… _asshole…”_

Apparently Zoro heard that, if nothing else. “What?”

“Uh…hh...” Sanji tried not to sound like he was being fucked into the wall or anything. But he was being fucked into the wall so it was tricky. Law’s cock was sliding into him all hard and hot, stretching open his still-swollen hole with unbearable friction. The fucker was knocking against him and keeping him off-balance, so he couldn’t get up the coordination to stall things.

He needed to stall Zoro then.

“N-need a different one.” There was a shiver in his voice, and that seemed to get Law going even more. Zoro was somehow still oblivious, though.

“Fuckin seriously? You gonna try on your whole wardrobe before you feed us?”

“If I fuckin have to, YEAH. Shirt. Sleeves and collar.”

“You’re the fucking worst.”

Sanji laughed to himself. He gave up trying to throw Law off and sank against the wall under the bruising hands, just letting himself be fucked. “I know.”

Zoro groused quietly, but thudding boots retreating down the hall told them he’d gone to get the damn shirt. Sanji sighed and thudded his forehead against the wall.

Law hadn’t slowed a bit. “I wanna mark you again,” he murmured in Sanji’s ear.

“I said no marks.”

“You said no _visible_ marks.”

“Hah… _nhh…_ One mark, somewhere you’ve already chewed to hell. Shoulder.”

“Teeth?”

“Tch. Yeah whatever, just fuckin go for it, asshole.”

“Mm…” Law let up his harsh grip around Sanji’s hips, and wrapped his arms around his waist instead. He mouthed over his neck and shoulder, the marks he’d already sucked into the pale skin. He closed his teeth around the flesh.

“Ahh… that’s hard enough. Law, ahh…”

Law pushed deep into him and held him there while he sucked a deep bruise into the tender span of pale skin, broken capillaries. Hummingbird pulse. Sanji made a choked little noise and Law surprised himself by coming right then, all in a rush. Buried inside him and wrapped around him and clamped onto him. _His._

They breathed.

After a moment of stillness, Sanji looked over his shoulder. “The hell, did you come before me? That's rare.”

“Mh. Yeah, sorry.”

“Whatever, you just better—whoa— _”_

Law flipped Sanji around so his back banged against the wall, and then dropped to his knees.

“Law AH oh fuck oh fuck oh fffff—” he let out a string of incoherent gasps and curses as Law’s perfect fucking mouth slid over his aching dick and kneaded the head with his tongue like… like…. Ah shit, he was already about to come, he was just maddeningly on the edge of it. His legs started to shake.

“Shit I'm… almost, god. Already…”

He jolted and let out a barely-muffled cry when Law slid two fingers into the slick mess of his hole, crooking them hard against that sensitive spot…

He came gasping Law’s name raggedly.

Law watched him come apart with satisfaction. Sanji's legs were shaking, he was barely still upright. He gave the sensitive head in his mouth a final rolling knead with his tongue and Sanji moaned shakily. He started to slide down the wall.

Law caught him with a laugh. “You’re perfect like this.”

“A fuckin mess?” Sanji pulled at the other’s collar and Law gave in without complaint. Their mouths met hungrily. It was as slow and deep and intense as the first time, and Law found himself thinking once again that he could get used to this. Sweetness and sass. Not quite romance novel stuff but hardly vivisection.

“Yeah. Wish you’d let the marks show.”

“Fuck…” This seemed to remind Sanji where they were. “Shitshitshit, I gotta cover this shit before anyone comes.”

The moment was broken and something twinged in Law. “I guess. You want me gone too?”

“Well, yeah but. Not that I don’t want you around. It’s just this whole thing.”

“I know.”

“Lemme up.”

Law shuffled back and did himself up. He stayed sitting where he was while Sanji discarded the clothes he’d brought and went about cleaning himself up a second time. The twinge wasn't going away.

“Blackleg-ya. Um. There has to be a point where you break things off with Zoro-ya, right?”

“I’ve already broken things off with him.”

“No, you fucking haven’t. Everyone, including him, is waiting around for some switch to flip like it always does, when you’ll get back together again.”

“I’ve told him it isn’t happening like that this time.”

“I get the impression that you say that every time.” Law heard an edge creeping into his voice.

“The fuck does it matter to you?”

“I just… I _don’t_ wanna be his placeholder, okay?”

Sanji stopped and gave him a look. “The fuck is this? You always think I’m all clingy. You won’t let me into any part of your past or your head or your space and now you—”

Law stood abruptly. “I’ve let you in on a _fuckload,_ Blackleg. Pieces of me I’ve never shared with _anyone._ Those not count?”

“Pff, really? More than you’ve shared with _Eustass?”_

“YES.”

“Bullshit.”

 _“Fuck_ you.”

There were heavy boots down the hall, and Sanji wrapped himself in a large towel. “Fuck off, Law.”

Law seethed at the dismissal. Part of him wondered why he was getting so worked up over something they’d both known was temporary from the start, but the rest of him was perfectly happy to go the route of petty jealousy.

“Right. Now that I’ve performed the services you’re lacking in your otherwise perfect romantic life, the good guy can come in and assume his rightful place between your legs, huh.”

He knew it was childish, but Sanji took his lead with flair.

“GUESS SO. Fuck off and let the next bastard get his morning power trip in.”

 _“Room,”_ Law growled, with a flick of one hand.

There was suddenly an entire barrel of rum where Law had been.

 

\---

 

Sanji glared into empty space, wrapped in the blanket-size towel usually reserved for Chopper. It was purple and probably had more volume than the furry little doctor himself.

He sighed and went to unlock the door at Zoro’s irritable banging.

“Your royal robes, jackass.”

“I'm amazed you found your way, dipshit.”

Sanji took the offered clothes with only a minor jab. It always astounded him that Zoro went along so easily (if peevishly) with his demands. Even the ridiculous ones. Without even asking why Sanji couldn't get his own damn clothes. Just… going with it.

Zoro stared past him at the barrel. “Are you bathing in rum? What the fuck?”

“Yeah, gotta purge the fungus from my feet before I do my morning pedicure.” He got the perturbed look he was fishing for (god the guy was easy to mess with) but it didn’t help his suddenly foul mood. “Fuck off and lemme change.”

The very-solid body stayed where it was, blocking the door. “Cook. If you think you can put me off with this avoidance shit you’re wrong. I meant what I said before.”

Sanji’s eye twitched. “I’m not avoiding you, I’m done with you. I also fuckin meant what I said before.”

Zoro breathed out a heavy sigh through his nose but didn’t press the point. He looked at the cook consideringly for a long moment.

“You’ve been in a fight?” he observed quietly.

“What? No.”

“Tch. Yeah. Your lip’s puffy and you're holding your arms all stiff around your ribs. That’s how you stand when you’re hurt.”

Sanji shrank back from the hand that was suddenly reaching toward the healed lip. “I’m not… just… fuck off. Usopp and Chopper threw a smoke bomb at me last night when I caught them stealing sugar again. Got me in the face.”

“That keep you from sleeping in your bunk, too? That’s also a thing you do when you’re injured. Hiding.”

“Just shut up. Move.” He scowled and shoved the swordsman as much as he could without shifting the towel, which wasn't much.

“That freakshow been testing you, hasn’t he.”

“...what?”

“Messing with you, seeing what you're made of. And you, probably being all accommodating, like a chump. Always so _gallant_ or whatever. You just invite this shit, you know that?”

“That's… oh my god we haven't been _fighting,_ we’re not all shitty macho meatheads.How the _fuck_ do you get shit so twisted...”

“Don't bullshit me. He came down to the bunkroom on some errand for you, acting all guilty, and you're up here trying to patch yourself up, aren't you?”

God. Zoro.

Sanji didn't fuckin need this. Guilt, of all things. He wasn't the one who should be feeling like an asshole just for refusing to take Zoro’s shit, for putting an end to a bad situation, for moving on.

Maybe it would be simpler to drop the bomb after all?

...Couldn't, though.

Couldn't fucking do that to him.

Zoro was moving toward him again, arms raised placatingly. “Cook, lemme see. Even if you're not gonna go to Chopper or—”

Sanji started to back up again, then scowled, squared himself and fucking cracked his head into Zoro's nose.

“Urgh! Fuhgger!”

Heh. Could always do _that_ to him, though. “You wanna keep your nose out of my business, and your hands to yourself?”

Zoro sneered and wiped his bloody nose on his sleeve. “Whatever. Have your little pet project. Rabid fuckin rat. When it bites off your hand I’ll still be around to put it down for you.”

Sanji bristled at the implication. Like he was the one who needed rescuing? “Marimo I can fucking handle myself without _you._ But this fuckin ship doesn’t eat without _me,_ so fuck off and let me do my thing.”

Zoro finally scoffed and stomped off to lift pointless heavy shit or whatever, and Sanji banged the door shut behind him. Locked it. He stared at the barrel and just barely resisted the urge to kick it through the fucking wall.

The mirror beckoned. He crossed the room, and with only the slightest hesitation, let the towel fall away.

The body in the mirror was riddled with marks, and not small ones either. Deep purple and yellow mottling across his collar and shoulders. Elbows and knees worn raw with friction. Bruises along his hips, sides, legs where Law’s pinching grip had pinned him down. Persistent, aching ones on his inner thighs, where Law’s sharp hip bones jammed against him every time he had Sanji on his back. And now, fresh marks all around his wrists too. The right one especially—it looked almost like a rope burn.

His lip was swollen, like Zoro had said. He was hurt, like Zoro had said.

And yeah. Hiding.

Sanji turned away from the goddamn mirror and waved away Zoro's weirdly perceptive misperceptions. He put on the familiar clothes… Zoro had brought his favorite outfit. The tailored pants and fitted cotton button-down made him feel composed. He wrapped his wrists in the bandages just to be sure, and splashed water on his face.

Good. There. He looked like himself again.

His hands were shaking, though... nicotine withdrawal. He took out a cigarette and lit up, pulling the soothing smoke into his lungs as deeply as he could.

 _“Bastards,”_ he puffed an acrid cloud at the mirror and stuck the cig firmly between his teeth as he went to take his anger out on some pastry dough. Weird, domineering, moody fucking bastards both. Fuck em.

 

\---

 

“Bastard,” Zoro growled to himself in the solitude of the crow’s nest. The actual fucking  _worst._

 

\---

 

 _Bastard,_ Law seethed silently in the lightless lower reaches of the ship. A complete and total _shit,_ that guy.

 

 


	9. Still I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Zosan stuff part 1/2. ZoSan was my first OTP way back when and I hate myself for making them sad but here. Be sad too.
> 
> This part comes right after the ‘flower’ scene in Ch.2

**Two days ago**

**\---**

_There’s always a winner and a loser, that's just how things are. Or… that's how they are with us._

_\---_

 

Sanji let himself be dragged out of the crowded kitchen, feigning boredom. The door slammed shut behind them and the raucous din of their crewmates’ antics was cut off. The crew would probably stay distracted by the spectacle of a beflowered Law (heh) for at least another twenty minutes, so there was that.

He sighed as Zoro pulled him along by the wrist toward the rear of the ship. “Probably wasn't super hospitable to throw Law to the chucklefuck parade, there, but I guess he’s got to acclimate someh—nNGHh—”

He was abruptly slammed into a wall.

 _“‘Law’??_ Since when are you on first name terms with _Trafalgar?”_ the kenshi growled.

Zoro’s scarred-over eye was level with Sanji’s visible one, blunt hands fisted in his shirt. His linen fucking shirt… shit was gonna get creased all to hell. Sanji ignored the question and the shirt-rumpling situation. He casually hung a cigarette over his lip and lit up. “So this how our ‘civil fucking conversation’ is gonna go, huh.”

“Seems like.”

“Figures. This is how everything with you goes, so why the hell not.”

 

\---

 _If it was just sex, winning would be simple as force. Right? Fucking like you're fighting. Easy._ _But this… It's a whole different level of bullshit and weirdness. Love, I guess. The rules get skewed without you even noticing. Suddenly, whatever strikes one of you hurts both. You land a blow and feel it in your own gut._

_But there you are, still trying to fucking do things by the rules of force, cuz what else is there?_

\---

 

Zoro grimaced somewhat guiltily and let go of the shirt, but didn’t back off. “You gonna tell me what you’re doing making flower crowns with a rival captain?”

“Just looking after our guest, Mossman.”

“Stay away from him.”

“Aw whyyy.”

He got an incredulous look. “Chyeh. Because? The cutting-people-up thing? The trail of destruction thing? Because _Warlord?_ Any of those should raise some fucking flags, Dartboard.”

Sanji rolled his eyes heavily. “Oh my god he's not like, a serial killer—”

“Uhhhhhhhhhhhh—”

“I'm not saying he's a saint either, he's just a little… in need of some positivity.” The cook gestured airily with the cigarette.

Something seemed to click for Zoro. “Oh _god_ you've found another fucking charity case haven't you.”

“It’s not ‘charity’ it’s… Look, you got a problem with me keeping people alive and happy? I can dial it back starting with YOU.”

The cigarette made a more dangerous gesture but Zoro just shook his head. “D’you remember _literally_ the first thing you did, the first time we met?”

“Dunno. Before or after you got Mihawk to sign your ribcage with his sword you drooling fanatic—”

“The FIRST THING.”

Sanji shrugged, “I fed some guys.”

“Yeah you rescued a hostile pirate fleet who then blew your dad’s place to hell.”

“FED some GUYS.”

“You dense fuckin sap. These things _always_ come back to bite you.”

 _This one literally,_ Sanji reflected with rapidly rising irritation. He squashed down the urge to throw this sordid detail in the preachy bastard’s face. It’d be satisfying… it’d start an epic fight… but. No. Couldn't.

He blew a leisurely lungful of smoke square in Zoro’s good eye and opted for a different strategy instead.

“Can you not fucking smoke while we’re… puahhh, _fuck._ You’re _such_ a prick.” Zoro shoved away from him with a cough.

“While we’re what. Conversing so civilly?”

“You’re the one who wanted to talk in the first place. Stare into each other's eyes, bare our souls or some shit. So here I fuckin am.”

Sanji smiled sarcastically. “Hahhh you suddenly wanna ‘talk,’ huh? After weeks of silence? _Funny.”_

Zoro persisted. “Yeah I did. Do.”

_“Weeks.”_

“You _know_ it takes me a while to think things through, you monumental asshole.”

“Whatever. Turns out I don’t wanna talk after all. Just hurry up and do what you came to do so I can get back to my fucking job.”

“Do what?”

 

\---

 _The key in this fucked-up scenario is to keep him off-balance, on the defensive, make sure he lashes out first. That's the only way to win._ _You take the blow and he takes the damage._

_“That's… not you winning, though. That's both of you losing.”_

_Eh. Well at least I'm not the only one now._

_“Childish, Sanji, dove.”_

_I know._

\---

 

 _“Fuck me,_ obviously.” The cook spread his hands in sarcastic invitation. “That’s what you’re after, right? Well you got exactly five minutes of my time. Go.”

“That is _not_ what I came to find you for.”

“Isn’t it.”

Sanji stepped into the other’s space with casual impertinence, crowding him back. He kept his weight on the foot opposite the swordsman’s blind side. They were about even height-wise but the bastard had bulked right up in two years. That would make him slower…

“Big man Marimo barges into my kitchen out of the blue, and he doesn’t want either booze or a dickwarmer? Mmhm. Cmon, let's go.”

“I’m not just… I don't just want—”

“Five minutes isn’t a lot, huh,” Sanji squinted at an imaginary watch. “Only enough time for _one_ of us to get off. _Oh, but then…_ only one of us ever does.”

“That’s not even true.”

“Four minutes thirty now. You require assistance or something, airhead? Frig, here.” He rolled his eyes and started unbuttoning his now-rumpled linen shirt.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Facilitating _access._ Plating up the _entree._ Laying out a fucking _welcome mat.”_

“God you're a lunatic,” Zoro massaged his scarred eye.

Sanji flung the shirt aside. “Debriefing the TROOPS.”

The flustered swordsman attempted to reason with the shirtless guy who was now bouncing on one foot and angrily wrestling his shoe off. “So you're mad about the… you-not-getting-off-every-single-time issue. Okay, that's a thing we can talk about. Civilly. If you'll just, uh?”

“FOUR MINUTES is a bit of a stretch. Gonna have to rush the prep huh? Well no biggie. My fault for not keeping myself _perpetually penetrable.”_ Shoeless, Sanji started on his belt.

“Okay we can… add that to the agenda. Can you stop that? Stop it. You're freaking me out. Leave the belt. And. And the pants. Keep your damn pants on. What _the fuck is happening.”_

“Three minutes is just pushing it.” The cook paused, dressed only in his fabulously form-fitting shorts. “You're gonna have to make do with my mouth. You’re into that though, right? Eeeeverybody loves beejays.”

Zoro slouched against the railing and scowled. Sanji sucked down a last drag of that New World tobacco and flicked the butt over Zoro’s shoulder. Smoke curled in the narrow space between their faces.

“The theatrics are a bit much even for you, Pervface.”

“Two and a half minutes.” Sanji huffed. It usually took way less than this to get a fight going.

“What do you even want?”

“What do you care what I want.”

“Is that what this is about? Some passive aggressive bullshit cuz you don't always get your way? Don’t be such a girl.”

Well, _fuck_ that. Sanji made a cheap grab for the three swords tucked in the red sash and was caught firmly by the arms.

“Finally,” he smirked, calculating his move for after he was thrown into the wall again. Or possibly the floor. It was 50/50 at this point, really…

Zoro dumped him overboard.

There was a squawk and an awkward splash.

After a moment, a mop of gold hair and a single blue eye surfaced, glowering so hard the water roiled. If he’d been on dry land shit would probably be on fire. Sanji pouted and tread water, resolving to stay in that exact spot until he fucking drowned.

His opponent sighed and leaned on the rail, looking weary but not exactly remorseful.

…He looked good when he was being all broody-determined, _fuck._ Scars and muscles and stuff. Stupid Mosshead.

 _“I hate you,”_ the soggy blond mop complained, which just came out as bubble-bubble-bubble.

Zoro understood anyway and a corner of his mouth angled up, though his eyes stayed tired. “Cook, I really did want to talk. Come up? And put your damn clothes back on?”

“Bbbl blbllblbl bbblllbllbbbbl.”  [Go fuck yourself]

“Don’t be like that.”

“Bblb.” [???]

“Okay, how about, if you come up here and talk to me like a fucking adult, with, like, actual words and stuff, maybe you’ll get your dick sucked. That what you want to hear?”

A waterlogged pair of shorts flew up and whapped him in the face.

So that was a ‘no.’

 

\---

_"So what is it that you want, Cook-san?"_

_Him. But not like this._

\---

 

Zoro closed his eyes and called up all the fucking zen he possessed. “God. Robin didn’t mention how much this ‘talking’ thing would make me wanna stab you.”

“...you went to Robin?” Sanji rose out of the water slightly, but didn’t come any closer. Obviously Robin was the first person any of them went to, including Sanji, but Zoro always played it like he didn’t need anyone’s input.

“Yeah, who else am I gonna get actual advice from?”

“My Robin is _such_ a saint.”

“Okay don’t even start with that gooey shit.”

Sanji sank down in the water and glowered at him again, but curiosity got the better of him and he came back up. “What uh… what did she say?”

“I dunno. Mostly all like ‘be patient’ and ‘affirm validity of feelings’ and ‘no insults.”

“Well you’ve fucked up _all_ of that so far.”

“I’m fucking TRYING to… just… _fuck._ Shut _up.”_ He rubbed his eye again. “She. She also said that she could tell things were bad, that something was truly fucked and needed correcting. She said if I didn’t… if I wasn’t the one to come to you this time, that there might not be a next time.”

Sanji floated. His anger was cold in his stomach now. “She wasn’t wrong.”

Zoro looked stricken. “I didn’t think it was that bad. We fight. Sometimes it gets bad. But it’s never point-of-no-return bad. Right?”

“You’ve… changed. Since before.” Sanji was glad, suddenly, that his hair was covering his face.

“I've _improved._ Things are better than before. And all the important stuff is like it was. _”_

“If you think the way things are now is a fucking improvement, maybe we never had what I thought we did.”

“Fuck… don’t say that.”

“You don't see a problem?”

“I…” Zoro tried to take some of Robin’s advice. “I _recognize_ there are things _you_ think are problems.”

Well that was the crux of the issue right fucking there.

“You don't fucking think it's a problem that you fucking make me bleed more often than you fucking make me cum?”

“You can take it fine. You always have. You're hardly weak.”

“Great, thanks. But neither are you, and yet you've been guarding your ass like it was Roger's dying gift to you.”

“Tch. There's just some things I don't wanna do, so I'm not gonna fuckin do em. If there's shit you're unhappy with, you're free to do the same. It's not that hard to say no.”

Sanji rolled his head wearily on his neck and bit down, again, on the impulse to throw Law’s name at him like a weapon.

_Law considers it a win if he gets me off before he finishes. Law’s repertoire is a little broader than 'bending Sanji over the table’ and 'pounding Sanji into the floor.’ Law let me fuck him five different ways the other night, then got up and fucked me back til I saw stars, and I only stopped him because I couldn't come anymore. Not because I was in too much pain to come at all._

_He doesn't kiss me, or stay to sleep wrapped around me, or try to stealthily breathe in my scent as he checks in on me cooking the next morning. But being left cold after being well fucked doesn't hurt anywhere near as much as being used by someone who's supposed to give a shit._

Sanji didn't say any of that. He kept it simple.

“Okay: no.”

“No to what? You don't like hard stuff after all? I can use more lube or whatever, or like, take it slow I guess.”

“You ‘guess’…” Sanji shook his head. “Fucking no to all of it. I... I don’t wanna get back together this time.”

“I… fuck. Cook…”

Sanji couldn't stand it. He ducked under the surface and let the water block everything out. It was getting dark out, the last rays of sunlight filtering wanly through the waves. It was so still under here. Cold.

He came up for air at last, not daring to look at Zoro.

“Cook, I still want you. I wanna work this out.”

Sanji shook his head, droplets scattering from his hair.

“And I still—”

“I know,” Sanji stopped him. “Me too.”

By the time he looked up, Zoro was gone.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maybe this whole chapter would make more sense if it came directly after the flower/kitchen scene? Less jumping around. Ppl who've been at this longer: does changing chapter order make you lose comments on those chapters or anything?
> 
> Also, upon re-re-reading, there's a massive continuity error FUCK just ignore, no going back now. I started writing this a while back.


	10. Still II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zosan backstory part 2/3 (yeah it grew again). Fucking and fuckups.
> 
> Warnings: This and the next chapter are about the breakdown of a relationship, so there’s an uncomfortable mix of lovey lovey and wrong-headed shit. Rough sex, pain, consent issues, pairing-typical violence and smack-talking

 

**Sabaody, three months ago**

\---

 

Sanji clenched his teeth and buried his fingers in the green hair, arms crossed around the nape of Zoro’s neck. Hot breath dampened his collar. His chest felt like it was bursting, full of relief and nervousness and something fluttering. His legs felt like they were burning.

It was the first they'd seen of each other in two years. Almost didn't feel real.

They were half-clothed and half-frantic. Zoro was wrapped around him tight, pulling them together urgently. It was tender, tense, too raw. _Fuck_ it was raw. Neither had thought to bring any lube because obviously boning could wait until after the crew’s long-awaited reunion. They weren't like, animals.

Anyway.

They'd caught sight of each other at the water’s edge and just waited, evaluating, for a long moment. So far so good. But then words and stuff had happened and then yeah.

It took a grand total of three insults, one finger jab and a grabbed tie for things to progress to ‘liplocked,’ which was a fucking record. It took a further two threats gasped into each others’ open mouths and a couple of shoves for the idea of waiting to go out the window.

Fuck the crew. And the gawking crowd, jesus.

The folds of a nearby colossal root system had served well enough for cover and they’d finally finally fallen into each other.

Zoro caught Sanji's pained expression and slowed. “Shit, uh. Need me to stop?”

“Uh. No. Thanks. I need you to fuck me.”

“I'm hurting you, though.”

 _“You_ couldn't hurt me if you tried,” Sanji rolled his eyes. “Just give it more spit.”

“Shut up, I could bench press eighty of you,” the swordsman grumbled. But he pulled out and spat into his hand.

“You can barely manage _one_ of m— _nnngh_ fuck! Ahh… ah…”

Zoro shoved back into him, hard, and grinned. Sass averted.

Sanji told himself he was letting him have that one. His head sank back against the mossy ground. His mind was going blank, overwhelmed with the feeling of familiar heat washing against him. _Zoro’s_ heat, _Zoro's_ scent. Zoro’s solid body pressing down over him and the heavy thickness of his cock pressing into him. It was still fuckin painful… but it was better. Everything was better.

He forgot the pain in his lower back as Zoro dragged a needy mouth over his neck, jaw, parted lips. It made Sanji melt, sharpened the pain in his chest instead. Made him forget his tough act for a moment.

“God I fucking hated losing you,” he exhaled against the three golden earrings.

Zoro didn't reply, just faltered, and curled against him a little more closely. Sanj felt the swordsman take an unsteady breath, and then another.

“...Zoro?”

“Damn it… Shitty Cook…” he heard from somewhere buried in his neck.

This time Sanji clenched his teeth to keep the feeling in his chest from spilling out. “Bastard Marimo.”

 

\---

 

They slept out on the deck the first few nights. Or in the crow's nest, doing double watch as they sped along under the water, deeper and deeper. Darker and darker, until it was like an unending night illuminated by clouds of drifting jellyfish.

Sanji woke Zoro for his watch one night with a lazy kiss, without thinking.

He froze as soon as his lips touched the other’s and he realized…

But it was all okay. A sleepy hand came up to thread through his hair, like nothing, like no time had passed at all. His chest clenched again suddenly.

It was the small stuff that got him.

The first time Sanji had ever tried that sappy kissing-awake thing, way back when they’d first entered the Grand Line, he'd gotten promptly brained with the butt of a sword. Which Zoro—after he'd fully awoken and realized who it was he'd knocked out cold—had found hi-lar-i-ous. When Zoro had tried it on Sanji another night, he'd gotten himself launched through a window. Now _that_ had been funny.

It had taken a little while and a lot of property damage for that shit to calm down. A good chunk of their injuries early on had been from… that whole process. Trying to fit themselves around each other's sharp edges. Training exceptions for each other into their tightly-strung combat reflexes.

Sanji had kinda thought they might have to go back through that whole messy stage after two long years, but it seemed they still knew each other on some instinctive level.

They still fit into each other. They still…

_Aw fuck. Fuzzies._

Sanji tried to turn and hide his flush under his hair but Zoro snorted and pulled the flustered blond down onto him.

“So your eye changed sides, huh.” He pushed the long fringe aside so he could see Sanji's whole face—something only he was allowed to do.

The blue eyes flickered around. Embarrassed.“Yeah I was getting wicked tan lines. Have to even things out.” Sanji coughed and smoothed his hair back down over one eye.

“Stop that. Lemme see both.”

“You know what they look like.”

“Why the switch?”

“Just a change.” Sanji decided that the situation needed fewer clothes.

“But now everyone can see it,” Zoro huffed. He let Sanji tug away the sash and green coat. It fell next to his swords—always close to hand.

Sanji rolled his eyes. “Are you seriously being all jealous about my eyes? Lame. Don't you wanna know who's seen the rest of me in the past two years?”

“Hah. I'm gonna say ‘no one,’ cuz you still repel women like a gross buzzing fly.”

“Pff. You wound me, unkind sir.”

“Truth hurts, Pervface. Hey hey, watch the haramaki. Respect the haramaki.”

This was more comfortable. Trading barbs and tearing off clothes. Sanji grinned and flung that godawful thing across the room.

“You son of a bitch,” Zoro sighed.

Once he'd gotten him stripped down, Sanji ran his hands over those… those groin muscle things, whatever you call em. Tight, perfect cords hooking over his hips and down to his dick. Those were new and fun. Zoro's body had changed so much, and Sanji's almost hadn't. He looked so much more solid, sculpted. Made Sanji want to get his hands all over him.

Also get his dick in him.

He went about the first bit with impunity, but the latter seemed to present a problem.

“Holy shit just relax and lemme blow you,” Sanji frowned around the foot Zoro had planted in his face.

“Blow all you want, just keep it above the balls.” Zoro removed his foot and crossed his ankles primly.

“I wanna fuck ya after though.”

“Yeah I’m… not into that right now.”

“Why the fuck not! You show up with all these fancy new features and I can’t try em out?” Sanji sat up and glowered, poking at one of the sawtooth muscles on his ribs. “Like this one. What’s this one for.”

“Swording shit.”

“Boooring. That’s what all your muscles are for.”

Zoro rolled his eyes and snagged a finger in Sanji's belt loop, tugging until the pouting blond was straddling him. He unbuttoned his shirt, pulled it off him. Then his belt.

“Pants off,” he sat up and mouthed over the pale chest.

Sanji was feeling uncooperative. “Whyyy.”

“Why the fuck d’you think.”

“You’re the one getting fucked, stubborn Mosshead.”

“Tch. Cute but nah.”

Zoro ran rough hands over Sanji’s hips and down to grab at his ass. His only redeeming feature, Zoro liked to tease. He held a perfect glute in each hand and ground against him.

It made Sanji shiver and harden too. He could let this go on, let Zoro’s steady hands work him open. Let Zoro pull him down onto his cock. Sanji’s legs didn’t tire, he could ride him like that for-fucking-ever, until Zoro was the one laid out all wrecked and milked out under him. Then he’d be pleasure-drunk and pliable, and Sanji could fuck him without too much bullshit.

They used to do stuff like that, try out different things. Sanji preferred getting fucked, but he could coax (/badger) Zoro into switching if he felt like it.

Not since reuniting though. The past couple nights had just been a continuation of that first reunion fuck under the titan trees of Sabaody. All frantic breath and clinging arms, faces nested firmly in each other's necks and eyes clamped shut, as though even pulling back enough to look at each other would make them pop and disappear into nothing.

It’d been Sanji on his back each time so far, which was fine. Crawl before you walk.

But they’d had a few days now to reassure themselves of the reality of it all. A few days of waking to find the other still there, still aboard the Sunny, still together. A few days of losing sight of each other in the daily bustle of the ship only to find each other again and again, a solid arm brushed at mealtime and a curl of cigarette smoke that materialized into a hand on a back (and then a jibe and probably a minor tussle).

They were okay. Everything was okay. So enough crawling; more running.

“Nah but YEAH.” Sanji elbowed aside the groping hands and slid back down to take him in his mouth again.

Zoro made an impatient noise and propped himself up on his elbows, watching.

Sanji fit his lips around the head of the meaty cock and sucked, working over the ridge until it was rock hard and twitching under his tongue. He was fuckin thick, almost more than Sanji could fit in his mouth at once.

Flicking his eyes up and finding Zoro still watching him impassively, he smirked and slid his hands down to part the muscled thighs.

A sudden shift in their positions, evading a grapple without even thinking, then aiming the blade of his foot toward a body that wasn’t there anymore… and Sanji found himself in an armlock, facedown on the floor.

“Heh! Nice! That was easy.”

“Son of a bitch,” Sanji groaned around a faceful of floorboard. “Lemme top!”

“Don’t wanna, though. I wanna fuck _you._ And I got you beat, so. I can do what I want.” Zoro leaned on him a bit more to drive the point home. His dick was hot and slick with saliva against Sanji’s back.

Sanji's heart started thudding. He was hard against the floor. “You coulda warned me that we were out of the shallow end, here.”

“Pff. We can hold hands again after, Dartboard. I know you been wanting to do it like this too.” Zoro reached a searching hand into Sanji’s waistband again, groping at the globe of one asscheek and squeezing hard before pushing his pants down to his thighs.

Sanji’s dripping hardon wanted him to just go with it, but his ego disagreed. He should at least make Zoro work for it a little more. Rile him up til he was feeling rough and they could actually FUCK.

Zoro was right, after all. He’d been fucking dying for this.

They used to play this game.

It was understood without ever saying so that Sanji was playing the game to lose. But also that it was Sanji setting the pace. They’d test, banter, tussle, go back and forth. Sanji would push and goad until his desired level of force was achieved. Usually just to the point where Zoro would have to hold his arms or push his face against the wall.

It was a good system. Fuck with Zoro, and get fucked accordingly.

Sanji considered his choice of answering moves… how hard to push, how fast. He could probably break Zoro's concentration with a heel jab and escape the arm lock if—

“AHHH!! FU—!!”

His thoughts were wiped blank by sudden pressure and _pain._ Zoro was pressing down on top of him, far heavier than he remembered, crushing weight at the base of his spine…

“Hey, breathe,” Zoro directed, like an _idiot._

“—ckkk…”

“You good?”

The _fuck_ kind of condescending shit was that. What, like Sanji was gonna ~say~ no? Out loud? _No, you're too much for me, mighty swordsman?_ Fuck that.

Sanji got his breathing under control. Swallowed. “Mm… hm…”

“Just relax.”

“YOU fuckin rela—aah! Aah! _Ahhh…”_

Holy shit, he was gonna fuck him like this. No easing in, no subtly gauging play, no way to back off without losing face.

It was burning, Zoro’s cock forcing open that tight ring of muscle, stretching and stretching and then breaching it with a push that winded him. Sanji was flat against the mat, legs pressed together. He wouldn’t be able to move even if his limbs worked right now.

“Fuck, you feel good,” Zoro murmured once he was flush against Sanji’s ass. “How many times have I fucked you, and still so tight…”

He let Sanji’s arm go and ran both hands over the muscles standing out tense and quivering in his back.

Sanji clenched and unclenched his fingers to get the circulation back. He managed to push himself up just slightly before Zoro pulled his hands out from under him and crushed him against the floor again.

“Ah! Bastard!”

“Fuckhead.”

Zoro held him down and fucked him, slow at first. Sliding halfway out and grinding back in.

“Bas… tard…”

It always took Sanji by surprise how much his body responded to it once he was pinned in place and being fucked. Heat radiating down his legs, up his spine, making his dick _ache._ Even when it hurt. Even when it hurt as much as this… which… it never had before. And it’d never been so abrupt before.

_“Zoro…”_

“You sound good like this, too,” Zoro was still murmuring, “You're always fuckin talking, just makes me wanna take you down, pound you, til you can't mouth off—”

“Drop... dead,” Sanji grit out. “You actual dick zit.”

“Fuck sake. Shut up.”

“Gonna make me or what.”

“You fuckin know I will.”

Zoro picked up the pace, jamming his whole length into Sanji’s aching hole fast and sharp. Their sweat-slick skin impacting loudly in the quiet of the crow's nest.

“Sh- _shit… ah…”_

“I'll fuck you all you want…”

Sanji growled again at this, but he still felt that telltale shudder start, way way deep in him. It built, way too fucking slow, until he was desperate, writhing, Zoro grabbing him harder to keep him in place. The too-thick cock was digging into him, fucking him apart, but not fast enough. He needed a hand on his dick, he needed it harder, needed _something,_ fuck, _fuck—_

“Needy _bitch.”_

Sanji made a strangled noise like he'd been hit in the gut. He tensed and arched, everything suddenly too much, too sensitive, his body pulsing painfully and his breath gone.

And then he was sore and empty, gasping against the ground.

“Nice,” Zoro paused as he felt Sanji go still. He pulled out with a slick sound and turned him over on his back. “Just from getting fucked, huh?”

Sanji managed an eye roll as he caught his breath. His stomach was a sticky mess and his limbs felt boneless. “Yeah, congrats. Your dick is fuckin magical.”

“Fuck yeah. Knew you wanted it.”

He pulled Sanji’s pants the rest of the way off, mopped him up, and rearranged them both so they were properly on the mat. Tender gestures but… He had this gloating smirk on. Sanji felt a sudden urge to kick him through the fucking wall.

He gave him a jab with his heel instead.

“Ow. Hey. The fuck.”

“Do not.” Sanji stuck a finger in his ribs. “Call me _that.”_

“What.”

“You know what.”

Zoro's gloating look dropped a little and he chewed his lip. “Worked, didn't it? Got you off.”

“Just don't, asshole.”

“Whatever, curly fry.” Zoro settled overtop of Sanji. He hadn't come yet, he was still insistently hard. He pushed a leg between Sanji's thighs and ground against him.

But then he paused at Sanji’s terse silence. Terse silence wasn't… like him. Sanji could practically hear the gears working.

“You can top some other time, I just don't, uh.” Zoro tried.

“Yeah, that’s no big deal.” Sanji handwaved that away.

“What then. Too rough?”

“Uh, _no."_

“Nah, you're into that.”

“Yeah… kinda.” Sanji didn't even know what he was being all terse and silent about. He’d gotten off, after all. And he could take the rest. He shrugged and laced his fingers together over his eyes.

Calloused fingers pushed his hands away from his face. Zoro leaned in until he was bracketing Sanji's head between his arms. Sanji had his eyes stubbornly closed but he could feel hot breath against his lips.

“Sorry.”

God, Sanji was such a sap. All it ever took was that thing… Zoro kissing his upper and then lower lip before easing in and tangling their tongues together. And there—fitting a hand around the back of his neck, just lightly. Made his chest hurt. Sanji didn’t fuckin have to open up so easily under that probing mouth, but he always did.

He really didn’t have to open up so easily to the weight pressing his thighs apart either, but he felt himself getting hard again too. Their cocks were gliding together between their overheated bodies.

Sanji hung an arm around Zoro’s shoulders.

Zoro tucked his face against Sanji's neck.

Sanji slipped a hand between them and guided Zoro back into him. The tip nudged in, easier now, not so much pressure. Slick.

And then Zoro was pressing all the way in, and it was stinging. Fucking stinging… but they were slotting into each other just so perfectly. Zoro let out a deep breath once he was fully sheathed, and rested his weight overtop of the slender body so every possible inch of them was touching.

“I was just playing. Tryna get to you.”

“Whatever, bastard kenshi.”

There was slickness on Sanji’s hand. He held it up to look as Zoro fit his hands over his hipbones and picked up his rhythm again.

Blood. Only a little, though.

“Cook…" He'd already forgotten that he'd been worried about his roughness. He was chasing his peak, lost somewhere in Sanji's neck. And really, that's how Sanji wanted him.

“Shut up. Fuck me.” Sanji shrugged the little trace away.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really really sorry for the long delay! I got distracted with my new KIDLAW SELKIE FIC so go check out my KIDLAW SELKIE FIC for sweet, comparatively gentle KidLaw navigating various kinds of wrenching and inescapable violence
> 
> Endnote 2: This song called Lightsaber Cocksucker Blues came on while I was finishing up and that’s just a sign from the holy mother of cock herself, so new fic title. Friendlier than before, yeah?
> 
> [Edit: COCKsucker not cucksucker ugghhhh that word]


	11. Still III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sanji communicates a need.
> 
> ZoSan backstory 3/4 (this is getting OUT OF HAND). Bit of relief between two heavy chapters. I just didn’t want to leave it like Zoro was the only one being a pushy dickhead. Sanji is also his Sanji self. 
> 
> Warnings: dickheadedness

 

**Still like two, three months ago**

\---

 

“Morninnng,” Sanji popped open the crow's nest hatch with a plate balanced on his head. “Suck my dick.”

Zoro took the plate and closed the hatch on him.

“Oh come on!” Sanji called through the wooden door.

Zoro opened the hatch again and waited, chewing.

“Protein shake?” Sanji tried with his most charming smile.

“Is it in your pants.”

“Yes. But not in a weird way!” He called through the firmly shut door. 

 

\---

 

“Okay, rice balls, sake,” Sanji passed Zoro a plate and a bottle. “Might I interest you in a sperm gargle.”

“Phhckk.” Zoro scowled at the sake spewed all down his front.

“Heheh.”

“Happy?” He wiped off with the dish towel Sanji offered.

“Yeah.”

“You're a fuckin menace, Cook. And no,” he added as Sanji opened his mouth again, “Just. No.”

 

\---

 

Okay, so Sanji was playing this little game largely because it was funny as fuck to watch Zoro scowl and grump when unexpectedly sprung with crass sex stuff. Fuckin prude, haha. But Sanji also DID have these needs. Not crazy, out-there needs. And how else was he supposed to suggest that something was lacking? Just… say it? Out loud?

 

\---

 

“Yes,” murmured Robin patiently, still absorbed in her morning paper. “Out loud. With words.”

“Like a spell.”

“Like communication. Negotiation, even.” She paused when there was no reply and looked over at Sanji's stubborn frown. She sighed. “Which part, exactly, are you finding difficult.”

“Like, can you just tell me which words will actually work, though?”

“That will be determined as the negotiations take their course. Just wait for a quiet moment and lay out your request very simply and clearly.”

“So…”

“Oh my god Robin,  _ what _ quiet moment,” Nami broke in from the lawn chair next to Robin's. “Sanji, hun, just get SUPER drunk and the words will start flowing, okay? Promise.”

 

\---

 

“So here are… words,” Sanji announced as he sat on the counter, swigging liquor from a half-empty bottle and playing the floppy-limbs game while Zoro tried to get the clothes off him. “Blowjobs.”

Zoro snorted and rested a weary head against his chest for a moment. “What?”

“Discuss.” He patted the mossy green hair and drank again.

“No. That’s not even a sentence. Just shut up.”

“Oh. Uh, fuck.  _ *Hic.*  _ Well,” he gestured between their dicks with the bottle but couldn't seem to find the exact words for what he meant. “You know?”

Zoro made a swipe for the booze and Sanji held it away with a stern glare. 

“I need a drink if I’m gonna put up with your shit, Cook. Fuckin give it.”

Sanji placed the bottle on the counter between his legs and gave Zoro a significant look. They stared at each other for a long moment, until, lightning-quick, Zoro snatched it away and turned to take a triumphant drink. 

Lazily, Sanji stretched out a leg and kicked it right out of his hand. It smashed against the far wall.

“What the FUCK, Cook!”

“Shhh, Marimar, listen.”  Sanji threw an arm around the angry swordsman’s shoulders and smooshed them together, cheek to cheek. He gestured expansively with the other hand, as though to indicate a broad, bright horizon full of endless possibility.

“Blowjobs,” he whispered reverently.

“No but actually fuck you.” Zoro tried to push him away but he was clinging.

“I’m verb’lizing all the stuff why aren' you doing the thing!” Sanji wrestled the green head toward his crotch, causing an unholy fight.

 

\---

 

“What I was trying to say, if you’d been paying attention,” Sanji began the next morning, as soon as he’d gotten his first lungful of smoke. There was a muffled groan at the sound of his voice. “Is no blowjobs for you if no blowjobs for me. OR, option two, and I think you’ll be into this one: blowjobs.” 

He blew a cloud of smoke at the kitchen ceiling and nodded. There.

“Whatever you want,” Zoro mumbled. His face was pillowed on the cook’s stomach, bouncing a little as Sanji puffed his cancer stick. They were sprawled on the kitchen floor, mostly wrapped in the tablecloth, in the middle of a modest disaster.

“Okay good!”

“Uh… lemme rephrase.” Zoro kept his eyes closed. “I’m gonna not, cuz I don’t really wanna, and you can also not if you don’t wanna, and that’s cool.”

Sanji ground his cigarette between his teeth. His strategy was backfiring. “No but wait, let’s back that up, cuz I’m actually really into putting your dick in my mouth—”

Zoro chuckled and raised his head, “Heheh, yeah, you’d be gnawing through the mast by next week if you didn’t feed that oral fixation—hey—”

Sanji got up abruptly, dumping Zoro onto the floor and taking the tablecloth with him. “Maybe we’ll see how long you hold out on me if I don’t feed YOU.”

“Oh my god, shitass. We all know you can’t handle anyone starving.”

“YOU DONT KNOW ME.”

“Sometimes I really wish I didn’t, but…” Zoro mumbled from the floor.

“Excuse me???”

Obviously there was no coming back from that little jab, and the kitchen achieved large-scale disaster status before yeah, Sanji had to put a lid on his outburst and get to work feeding people breakfast. Including Zoro because, okay, the idea of anyone going hungry actually gave him hives.

Zoro got special dick-shaped meals for the rest of the week, though, to his extreme embarrassment.

“I get this feeling like I’m being punished,” he noted between his teeth one day, as he was handed two rice balls and a rice dick on a plate.

“It’s called communication?” Sanji replied.

It was around this time that Zoro seemed to stop… trying.

 

 


End file.
